Michael Honnor
Hogweed & Honeysuckle
THACKERAY GALLERY EST.1968
Wild flowers have always been my favourite flowers. I like their ragged, tough delicacy. They’re Shakespeare’s brave weeds which outlive the sickly cultivated sort and prick the landscape with their tiny dances of colour. Even now the smell of sellotape takes me back to the age of six when I used to stick my squashed-flat specimens into a scrapbook. Now I’m finding ways of putting them flat into paintings, no longer squashed or even picked, but still carried home with the same hoped-for expectation that I’ve caught something alive. Michael Honnor 2015
Fernycombe: Sea Mayweed acrylic on linen – 48x46cm
Erme Estuary: Primrose, Celandine acrylic on linen – 46x41cm
Erme River: Autumn, Hogweed mixed media on linen – 38x41cm
Harford Bridge: Sheep’s Bit, Bramble acrylic on aluminium – 41x38cm
Hoist Point: Hawksbeard, Plantain mixed media on paper – 33x41cm
King’s Wood: Snowdrops acrylic on linen – 48x48cm
Morvah: Wild Carrot, Goatsbeard acrylic on linen – 48x51cm
New South Wales: November Flowers 1 mixed media on linen – 43x43cm
New South Wales: November Flowers 2 mixed media on linen – 43x43cm
New South Wales: November Flowers 3 mixed media on linen – 43x43cm
New South Wales: November Flowers 4 mixed media on linen – 43x43cm
North Norfolk: Common Poppy acrylic on linen – 28x33cm
Portheras: Cow Parsley acrylic on linen – 36x38cm
Portheras: Scabious, Sheep’s Bit acrylic on linen – 48x51cm
Les Alazards: Late Summer Flowers mixed media on linen – 43x48cm
River Dart: Scabious, Hawkweed acrylic on aluminium – 25x38cm
Scobbiscombe: Daffodil & Celandine acrylic on linen – 43x43cm
Scobbiscombe: Dandelion & Celandine acrylic on linen – 43x46cm
Torr: Wild Daffodil acrylic on linen – 46x48cm
Trendlebeare Down: Bog Asphodel acrylic on linen – 41x46cm
Under Hameldown: Gorse acrylic on linen – 58x56cm
Wiscombe Cliff: Honeysuckle acrylic on linen – 43x43cm
Wiscombe: Samphire, Campion, Sorrel mixed media on paper – 34x42cm
Zennor Head: Plantain acrylic on linen – 46x48cm
Beacon Point: Cow Parsley, Sorrel acrylic on aluminium – 26x30cm
Brent Moor: August Flowers acrylic on aluminium – 33x38cm
Dartmoor: Cotton Grass acrylic on paper – 46x43cm
Hameldown: Blackthorn, Three Cornered Leek acrylic on linen – 56x53cm
Photo of work being created in situ
Mattiscombe: Bluebells acrylic on linen – 30x36cm
Minsmere: Flag Iris acrylic on linen – 36x48cm
Mullion: Cow Parsley, Bluebells acrylic on linen – 30x36cm
New South Wales: Spring Flowers mixed media on linen – 30x32cm
Predannack: Bluebells acrylic on linen – 41x48cm
Red Cove: Rough Sea & Flowers acrylic on linen – 26x30cm
River Dart: Scabious, Common Hawkweed acrylic on linen – 28x33cm
Tregardock: November, Wild Carrot acrylic on paper – 33x46cm
Wonwell: Wild Plum, Dandelion, Bluebell acrylic on linen – 38x41cm
BIOGRAPHY Michael Honnor was born in 1944 and grew upon the edge of Dartmoor, Devon, where his instinctive connection with wild landscape was forged. He left Devon to read English at Oxford and then painting at Hornsey College and Byam Shaw School of Art. In 1978 he returned to live and paint on the edge of the Erme Valley, Dartmoor and it was at this time that he also set up the celebrated print workshop at Dartington Hall. He is still its active director and tutor. For Michael Honnor the wilder landscape of Britain has been a constant source of inspiration -‐ and in the past few years he has also found material for his painting in Italy, Corsica, Portugal, France and most recently Australia. Much of his work is done outdoors, in all weathers, and in particular in places where land meets water. "What I am after -‐ out of all the excitement, the sun, wind and rain -‐ is a painting so on the point of balance you can hear a pin drop. A bit like a pause in a dance, something alive and breathing and still." Michael has exhibited for 26 years at the Thackeray Gallery as well as widely in the UK. His work is in many private, public and corporate collections.
Published by Thackeray Gallery Ltd © Thackeray Gallery, 2015 Art Photography by Doug Atfield