Dylan Lloyd lives and works in Blandford Forum, Dorset. His work is a painterly response to the classic subject matter of the 'garden'. The paintings balance photographic depth of field and pixilation with traditional painting techniques. Built up through thin layers of oil paint, there are areas of intense detail balanced with gestural brushwork, encouraging the viewer to enter the space and be transported into a verdant landscape alongside being absorbed by the surface of the paintings.
Many of the gardens are imagined places but are a response to formal and wild gardens of the South West. A number of works in this collection are based on his time working in the kitchen garden at River Cottage near Axminster where edibles merge with flora, hedgerows, walls and the iconic farmhouse. It has been a major source of inspiration for the last two years and a place that he continues to visit regularly and respond to by drawing in location and painting in the studio.
Recent developments in his work have seen a greater emphasis placed on the freedom of plants and paint to flourish independently. Hedgerows, wild flowers, birds and grasses have emerged with greater energy whilst the painterly setting remains gestural and suggestive. The appreciation of plants, nature and the landscape and the painted response to it have been, like for so many other people, an increasingly important aspect of life over the last few years. “the pleasure of working in the studio, drawing in gardens or walking in the landscape have never been so important and so closely connected”.
