EXHIBITION of drawings and other recent work by Celia de Serra showing at Ludlow's Silk Top Hat Gallery October 17-November 14.

'She brings a new focus with a modern twist to one of our most threatened environments'.

Come and meet the artist at the Gallery on October 17, 11am-1pm.

Celia de Serra's works present an off kilter, forensic interpretation of woodland. Largely perceived as a traditional subject, she brings a new focus with a modern twist to one of our most threatened environments. Her obsessively detailed and worked imagery suggests that she fears the imminent disappearance of woodlands. 'I think they are amongst the only places left where it is possible to find unblemished nature, perhaps to get a sense of a pristine, undamaged pre-human world.'

'In finding an image that might resonate, and through remaking it, I hope to reconcile my engagement and love for the natural world with an increasing sense of horror at the abuses we have, and continue to inflict upon it.' She quotes American landscape photographer Robert Adams who said, 'I began making pictures because I wanted to record what supports hope; the untranslatable mystery and beauty of the world. Along the way, however, the camera also caught evidence against hope, and I eventually concluded that this too, belonged in pictures if they were to be truthful and thus useful.' It is in this spirit that, responding to ongoing environmental threat and searching for 'hope', she explores recurring subjects in our rural environment. Her practice over the last few years has included tracks, holloways, woodlands - the oases of a microcosmic wild environment. In this exhibition, 'Threshold', these subjects lead into a slightly new direction - pools and ponds – 'the edge of a wood represents an exciting moment - full of possibilities and ambiguities'.

'Woodlands are crammed full of visual ideas. They are dynamic spaces broken by chaotic forms and shifting light; a curious sense of stillness and movement, space and enclosure. There is too much information here for the brain/eye to process, it demands attention and time and to be captured… My eye is the lens with which I choose to shift and tilt perspective, my intention being to re-frame and re-see the forest, to challenge how we see things and our relationship with our environment.'

She says, 'I love the directness of drawing, the marks, the tonal variations and the capacity to build up layers and depth without the cloak or confusion of colour. It can be incisive, suggestive and forensic, capable of great sensitivity, variety and tonal variation. For me, drawing is subliminally incisive, more so than painting, and more akin to photography perhaps; an unravelling and remaking of each tiny piece of the image, bringing a closer affinity to the woodland subject matter. Like a photograph, the image is a fragment preserved and springs from an urge to preserve.'

We were delighted to read in The Week, 'David Hockney may be the painter everybody's talking about, but he's just one of many artists in Britain engaged in the task of rejuvenating landscape painting. Celia de Serra is another. "Beaten Track", her painting of woods encroaching on an Iron Age fort in Shropshire, is a case in point. It may not be revolutionary in its subject matter, but the angle at which it's tilted - reminiscent of a snapshot from a handheld camera - gives it a distinctly modern feel. There are no human beings in sight, but we do see some human footprints, leading the viewer round a corner at what feels like speed. The action of sunlight on the trees makes them seem to vibrate, and the path writhes - all adding to the sense of propulsion and a slight feeling of unease. "The woods are lovely, dark and deep," wrote Robert Frost: few tell of their mystery better than de Serra.' (The Week 17th March 2012)

Now living in south Shropshire, Celia de Serra was born in 1973 and spent her childhood in rural Kent and West Dorset, graduating from Exeter University in 1995 with a B.A. in Art and English. Her early art practice was predominately concerned with abstraction but she retained an obsession and attachment to her rural roots and went on to produce a body of work investigating and responding to farming, tourism and the timber industry's impact upon rural environments, from the West Country to Shropshire and Wales. She has exhibited frequently with solo exhibitions in Dorset, Exeter, Shropshire and London, has completed commissions for both Somerset and Dorset NHS Trusts where a collection of her paintings now remain on permanent display and has twice been awarded grants for her drawings from the Oppenheim-John Downes Memorial Trust. Her work is in private collections in the UK and Europe.

• Concurrent shows at Silk Top Hat Gallery: Exhibition of prints by Francis Carlile, ceramics by Sue Binns, Josephine Harvey and Mary Stephens

• Further images and information are available. Please phone 01584 875363, exhibitions@silktophatgallery.co.uk or go to silktophatgallery.wordpress.com.

Silk Top Hat Gallery, Quality Square, Ludlow SY8 1AR

For further information 01584 875363, Monday to Saturday, 10am - 5pm.