Thyme: Modern Muralists

In May 2026 I am joining Lucinda Oakes and Tess Newall for Modern Muralists at Thyme, a country estate in Southrop, Gloucestershire. It is the first time the three of us have exhibited together,  and Thyme, with its deep connection to the land and storied atmosphere, provides the perfect resonance for such a gathering. The exhibition is staged within the estate’s seventeenth-century Tithe Barn; a space that demands a site-specific response and serves as a magnificent anchor for our collective exploration of the mural tradition.

The exhibition was curated by Emily Hill, Head of Exhibitions at Charleston, whose understanding of the relationship between painted surfaces and the spaces they inhabit made her the natural person to bring this project together.

The Work

My contribution to Modern Muralists is a site-specific mural made for the Cotswold setting: a world of botanical abundance where the boundary between the observed and the imagined becomes deliberately unclear. The plants and wildlife of Thyme's landscape are in it, but they are not rendered literally. I am more interested in what a place feels like than in recording what it looks like, and the Cotswolds in dreamy watery light has a quality that I found deeply enticing.

Alongside my large, scenic panel centrepiece is Cotswold Dusk, a fresco secco panel available at the exhibition, the composition inspired by early 18th-century painted cloths, a tradition that has long informed my practice.

This cracked and aged scene explores the moment evening light dissolves into night over the estate. Within this hazy, twilight blue world, the silhouette of the Manor House, the resident barn owl, and Thyme’s iconic Cedar of Lebanon emerge through layers of chalk paint, resulting in a meditation on the landscape in transition."

The Exhibition and the Artists

The three practices approach the mural tradition from different angles. Lucinda Oakes works in a tradition of finely observed, historically rooted painting. Tess Newall's practice extends from murals into a well-established body of wallpaper, fabric, and handmade homewares. My own work sits between the hand-painted original and its commercial life: the wallpaper repeat, the Giclée print, the fabric. What brings the three of us together is a shared belief that painted surfaces matter, and that the walls of a building are worth taking seriously as a place for art.