'It's hard to ignore a Josephine Trotter painting. Fervent, powerful, filled with vibrant colour and with a strong sense of place and personality, they seem to fill the room.'
Josephine Trotter's 26th solo exhibition features 40 new paintings, with a particular focus on the large-scale landscapes for which she is best known, alongside still lifes, interiors and portraits. The landscapes, painted en plein air at a single sitting and all completed in 2023 and 2024, demonstrate that Trotter's exuberant use of colour is as immediate and passionate as it has ever been.
"It's hard to ignore a Josephine Trotter painting," writes the curator and author David Boyd Haycock in his introduction to the exhibition catalogue. "Fervent, powerful, filled with vibrant colour and with a strong sense of place and personality, they seem to fill the room."
Many of the works are painted in Somerset - new territory for Trotter. This new subject matter has made a strong impact on Trotter and given her paintings a fresh exuberance and a new dimension. "I have to have 'the hype' of the subject in front of me," she says. "The landscape of Somerset between the Quantock and Brendon Hills, with its distinctive reddish-brown soil, has given me a new burst of that exciting and energising feeling."
Other places featured include Wensleydale, Dorset and, of course, Oxfordshire, where Trotter has lived and worked for the past 50 years. Brailes Hill, which is to Trotter what Mont Sainte-Victoire was to Cezanne, has a starring role in The Cotswolds, a heartfelt interpretation of the countryside that surrounds her home.
Boyd Haycock concludes: "You know that she has been there, that she has really seen and felt these places and people and objects, absorbed them and responded to them with her own sense of purpose and character - with a joie de vivre that defies her years. It is unmistakable!"
Enquiries:
Clare James
07738 298804
Opening hours:
Monday - Sunday, 10.00 am - 6.00 pm, and by appointment
Visit www.josephinetrotter.com to view new and recent work.