I had a little chuckle to myself when I was at South Hill Park and discovered there is an exhibition of the work of Sandra Bright and Martin Bright focused on the Swinley Forest. It was very interesting to see the reaction and interpretation of other artists to it. As far as I can tell they are more familiar with the northern part of the forest (whereas I am more familiar with the southern end).
Their styles seem very different, Sandra's work is more representational and made up the majority of the exhibition, mainly pen drawings, artists books and mixed media paintings. Martins work was more geometric and slightly abstracted.
I have to admit that I wouldn't have known it was the Swinley Forest they were focussing on unless I had read the information. I associate the forest with the large pine plantations and those trees seemed to be missing from all of the images. There were some drawings of huge oak trees but doors seems to have been inserted into the trunks turning them into some kind of magical fairly land which again, I don't associate with the forest. I don't know the north of the forest that well but the areas I do know don't seem heavily populated by oak trees so I will have to make a point of looking for them.
I was interested by the foxglove image that stated it was looking at Caesars Camp (an iron age fort). I've only recently visited it and will make a point of going back in summer as there are areas of the forest that seem to be covered in foxgloves in summer.
I think this exhibition showed me that there are lots more parts of the forest for me to explore and that everyone has different things they notice and explore in the forest. I was interested in the fact that I couldn't identify it though, so this is something to ponder in my work. While I don't think every image will be identifiable as the forest I would like local people to recognise it when my work is seen as a body.