During the formation of the Brotherhood of Ruralists, Annie Ovenden was asked by Peter Blake to submit a picture for the Royal Academy. She found her subject in a huge ancient tree near the entrance to her Gothic Revival house in Cornwall. Annie described how: ‘It was the light. The tree is full of light, and there’s a lot of darkness in the foreground leaves and fence. It’s a contest between the two. I like to think of trees as uplifting, something coming out of the dark into light. It’s this feeling of surge, well-being.’
Trees, and their power to stir within us varying intense feelings in the changing light and seasons, have been at the centre of Annie Ovenden’s paradise ever since – from luminous nocturnes and glorious golden autumnal valleys, to highly finished pencil drawings, Pre-Raphaelite in their attention to detail.