Beneath the sky

Courtney Gallery

From May 1st

Enquire for full list of available works.

A 40 page book accompanying this exhibition is available here

In recent months I’ve been experimenting again with mixed media works on paper & trying to push the playfulness of this medium. This is a collection of some of these pieces. 

I’ve used small sketchbook notes and ink sketches as references, as these always contain the immediate energy and movement I enjoy seeing in my work. I’m less concerned with detail and specifics, choosing to focus on mood, movement, and mark making as my primary interest.

Mark making is a crucial part of this process as it’s through the layering of paint, brush marks, pencil and collage (as well as a few other things), that the feeling of the real landscape comes across. The idea that the physical quality of the paint echoes the way the landscape is made has been a constant in my work for a long time.

Sketchbook pages made near my home in the Derbyshire Peak District, are where the direct observation and experience comes from. They are the point of contact with the landscape & I use them not only as reference for marks, shapes and colours but also to remind myself of what it was like to be there.

The experience of being in the landscape goes far deeper than its superficial appearance. A walk through a rainy meadow on an Autumn morning will leave an emotional echo in your mind. A rapid sketch made at that moment will help you to draw from this source of human experience as you work in the studio. It’s moments and feelings like this I’ve tried to put into this collection of paintings.

Not pictures of the landscape but paintings about the experience of being in the landscape.

Lewis Noble 2026