FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD

Relief Prints by Rosie Fairfax-Cholmeley & Robin Wilson

22 October – 22 November 2015

Climbing the hill to Wytham Woods, one leaves behind the drone of traffic and white noise of our all-too-busy lives. We enter the peace and seclusion of a cathedral of ancient woodland. Cocooned by trees that reach up to find their patch of sunlight, the quiet of the woods is broken only by bird song - pidgeons, a rare cuckoo, and if you listen carefully, perhaps the drumming of a woodpecker. At dusk you might hear the rustle of badger in the undergrowth, or light-footed roe deer as they shy away deeper into the trees.

Down a soft earthen track, you will find Rosie and Robin’s printmaking studio, a miniature alpen hut complete with balcony. Looking out across a ‘mini’ meadow, there is a fine aspect over tree tops towards Oxford. The studio is surprisingly small but efficient, a hive of printmaking industry with an Albion Press in pride of place. There is a romance to their situation. One catches a glimpse of ‘artist at work’, at one with nature, of another gentler time.

This exhibition is split between prints of Wytham Woods, and summers spent in the Scilly Isles since childhood. There is a natural yin and yang to the energy of the art that they create side by side - a softer, quieter nuance to Rosie’s prints that echoes the peace of her Sylvan abode, and the more robust energy of Robin’s prints - his much loved Scilly Isles have proved treacherous to the many ships cast onto an archipelago of rocks that form these beautifully wild islands.

Whether rambling on long summer days over honey gorse and heather clad hills, prawning the rock pools of deserted beaches, or working winter days holed up in their studio at Wytham, Rosie and Robin remain Far from the Madding Crowd.