Most of the work in this show was made in the landscape near my home in Derbyshire’s Peak District. I paint outside as much as possible as the experience of being out in the landscape is at the core of my practice. When painting I involve all the senses, so the paintings are not a just a representation of how the landscape looks but also what it feels like to be there. I want to capture the sounds, the smells and essence of that place.

Time is also an important element in my work. I like to think that the painting contains all the time that was spent making it. The layers underneath that are worked over and built on are as much a part of the painting as the finished image. They are evolving, not just in a frozen moment, like a photograph, but constantly moving and alive. In ‘Sun but rain coming at me’ I was painting on a bright spring day but I could see that ominous looking clouds were building. The contrast of the light making the bright seem brighter and the first few drops of rain starting as the clouds drifted near, gave a very strong sense of the ever-changing environment.

I start by drawing and sketching, to get a feel for where I am and to discover what might make an interesting, more involved painting. I think of drawing as a tool that helps me to see what is there. It is through the process of making rapid drawings and colour sketches that I develop ideas. When working outside, I use a combination of media. The different properties of the paint allow me to work in a very flexible way. I like to build the surface of the painting and then work into it, scratching and erasing, then rebuilding, letting the image emerge through the process. In this way the physical nature of the landscape is echoed in the multi-layered paint surface.

There are certain themes in these paintings which are very Derbyshire. The colours, the expansive slow moving clouds, dewponds and the dry stone, limestone walls and stiles, covered in different coloured lichens, which are such a feature of the southern Peak. The sound of Jackdaw crows are so bound up in the landscape they seem like part of it.

Lewis Noble, March 2012