Len Fox Painting Prize 2022

*Vaughan Springs* (2021)
Oil on Canvas on Board
22 x 30cm

Artist Statement

Emanuel Phillips Fox (1865–1915) is celebrated for his subdued, tonally sophisticated landscapes. He often used a subtle, low-key palette to capture the fading atmosphere of particular places.

In paintings like “Wooded Landscape” (c.1900), “Autumn” (c.1900) or “Sunset on Poplars” (c.1900) he challenged himself to paint a large clump of trees in fast-fading light. In these works, the outline of things begins to blur, and you feel as if you are becoming part of the landscape yourself.

In “Vaughan Springs” I have followed a similar approach. Completed en plein air, as Emmanuel Phillips Fox often did, this painting contemplates the quiet mystery of trees, wind, grass, and a narrow path trailing off into the distance.

I haven’t tried to capture the more obvious shapes of things in this picture. Instead, I’ve allowed each brushstroke to move with the changing light, wind, smells and sensations of the forest. The place is then allowed to speak for itself from the inside out, quietly and naturally, as it so often does in the paintings of Emanuel Phillips Fox.

Vaughan Springs (2021)