The exhibition will feature over 30 works by Rob Pountney, all inspired by the Wessex landscape and the works of Thomas Hardy, including images of Stonehenge, Avebury and Hambledon Hill.    All the artworks are for sale, modestly priced from £350 to £400.

The artist is strongly influenced by the rich diversity of the Wessex landscape and how the natural historical and archaeological features, for instance ancient barrows and hillforts, provide a stark visual reminders of the human association with the Wessex landscape through long ages of time.

Rob is also influenced by the works of Thomas Hardy, who used dramatic visual effects – found in Gothic, sensationalist fiction and Victorian stage melodramas – to capture his readers’ interest in the landscapes his characters occupy in his novels.

Using compressed charcoal Rob uses these influences to create works with subtle and strong contrasts of light and shade, highlighting the geological and archaeological features of the Wessex landscape.

The artist, Rob Pountney says:  I am interested in how Hardy’s landscape portrayals can be viewed in two ways simultaneously whereby he holds our objective vision on one image of the landscape whilst guiding our imagination towards acceptance of another.  Hardy’s descriptive technique of passing from sight to insight shows that he was well versed in the Victorian geological scientists and archaeologists research emphasis on acts of observation and induction.

Heather Ault, Exhibitions Officer, adds: The Wiltshire Museum is delighted to have this exhibition of Rob Pountney’s beautiful artwork focusing on the Wessex landscape. Rob beautifully captures the mystery and wonder left to us of this ancient landscape and the deep longing to connect to a past long gone and yet still so much a part of our lives here in the southwest.