Tucked away in the quiet village of Hook Norton, artist Rachel Cronin is the winner of the 2021 Artweeks Mary Moser Award, an annual award intended to help develop the career of an artist who has taken up art professionally after time working in another sector. Artweeks festival director, Esther Lafferty chatted to Rachel to find out more about her art and her inspiration.
“When I was small,” Rachel begins, “I always wanted to be an artist (apart from the summer I wanted to be Alexis Colby in Dynasty), and in every
What is it that inspires your paintings?
“I’ve always been drawn to landscapes, seeking out forms, patterns and colours. It’s the countryside that inspires me most and I love the rolling
Rachel adds hidden words, palimpsests glimpsed beneath later layers that echo the history intrinsic to the landscape itself, and elements of symbolism to her paintings. Look carefully and you might see a small X or P for example – each mark, sometimes inspired by Anglo-Saxon symbols, sometimes invented, creates a personal language that offers glimpses of local folklore.
“I was always fascinated by history, and its strange stories in particular. As a child I had a book on the myths and legends of the British Isles and it was very well thumbed, especially the section on Banbury and North Oxfordshire! I’m rather a magpie, collecting snippets of history and tales that catch my attention. I suppose it’s the same kind of approach I have to looking at the landscape!” she laughs. “I particularly love the Roman Road from Shutford to Broughton Castle. It’s very flat and straight with some great wide views and passes through little farms and by pretty babbling brooks. From Whichford Hill, there’s a wonderful rolling view down to Hook Norton beneath massive skies and, standing at the top, you get such a sense of the distance and vastness of the land as field patterns stretch into the distance – of time too, and centuries past. I pass by Traitor’s Ford on the edge of Whichford on one of my favourite circular walks and always wonder why it is known as that: one theory is that the name was originally Trader's Ford because of its position on an old trading route, whilst other people suggest a traitor was hung here during the civil war after the nearby Civil War battle of Edgehill.”
And it’s that haunting sense of intrigue rooted in timeless landscapes which Rachel captures so beautifully in each of her paintings.
You can see more on Rachel and her art at rachelcroninartist.com or over on Instagram @rachelannecronin. She is currently planning a new exhibition for the Oxfordshire Artweeks festival in May.