In my landscape drawings and paintings I do not try to produce an accurate representation of the landscape, rather the work is about being in the landscape.
In Holderness, East Yorkshire, the landscape is agricultural and intensively farmed. Until I returned after thirty years working away as a lecturer in art & design, I hadn’t fully appreciated how much I missed the area and, especially, the River Humber with its low-lying land crosscut with drainage channels. ‘Ings’ is a common name in the Holderness area (Ings Road, Sutton Ings for example) and it comes from a Norse word meaning water meadow or marsh. It’s the drains and ditches that keep the Holderness area in a condition that can be farmed.
It’s a horizontal landscape in which there are very few vertical accents; the telephone and electricity poles, a copse of trees, a hedgerow. These things do tend to stand out and the poles in particular can have a slightly forlorn quality sometimes and the nothingness of a big field of crop presents a particular challenge, not only because I have such conflicting views about that kind of monoculture.
I feel a particular connection to the flatlands because it’s here that I grew up; my great grandmother was a servant girl in one of the big farmhouses in the area. The names of many of the farms and the roads reflect the origins of the land; Marsh Lane, Thorn Marsh Farm and so on.
John D. Petty. December 2022
Summary of exhibitions since 2012.
Solo exhibitions.
2023
Lost & Found. Kentmere Gallery, York.
2018
Drawing and painting the Agricultural Landscape. Morten Gallery, Bridlington.
Mud and Water. Eleven Gallery, Hull.
2017
Mud and Spit. The Ropewalk, Barton-on-Humber.
Joint and open exhibitions.
2023
East Riding Artists, Brynmor Jones Gallery, University of Hull.
Ferens Open, Hull.
From the Humber to the Wash. Biennial open. The Ropewalk, Barton-on-Humber.
2022
Ferens Open, Hull.
2018
East Riding Open. Beverley.
From the Humber to the Wash. Biennial open. The Ropewalk, Barton-on-Humber.
Kingston Art Group, Brynmor Jones Gallery, University of Hull.
2017
Great North Art Show. Ripon.
Ferens Open. Hull.
2016
East Riding Open. Beverley
Great North Art Show. Ripon.
Eleven Gallery, Hull.
2015
East Riding Open. Beverley.
From the Humber to the Wash. Biennial open. The Ropewalk, Barton-on-Humber.
Ferens Open. Hull.
Figurative. POP Gallery, Hull.
2014
POP Gallery Open Exhibition. Hull.
East Riding Open. Beverley.
Ferens Open. Hull.
2013
From the Humber to the Wash. Biennial open. The Ropewalk, Barton-on-Humber.
2012
Ferens Open. Hull.