Elements of Landscape – John Hitchens: Landscape as an Index of Possibilities

John Hitchens achieved early acclaim in the 1960s and ’70s. A series of successful exhibitions led to acquisitions of his work by numerous public and private collections in the UK and overseas. From 1990 onwards he began to explore a new approach to painting, one that involved him working more closely with the land, with natural materials and objects found in the landscape. At the same time he developed a highly personal form of abstraction and imagined landscape forms, setting his work apart from more conventional abstract painting. Grounds for Art  provides the first  extensive survey of John Hitchens’ work from 1990 onwards in which he has radically pursued his painting in close relationship with the natural world. These works are deeply rooted in the rural environment of his home and the surrounding Sussex landscape. It fully illustrates the breadth and power of this recent work, featuring his paintings on shaped and mixed-media canvases, as well as the artist’s land art projects on the Sussex coast. Other chapters examine his work with wood, paintings on stones, and placements of found objects. Sandy Mallet’s text is based on extensive interviews with John Hitchens, and is supplemented with the artist’s own comments on his paintings. The book is the second major study of John Hitchens’ paintings. It follows five years after the publication of Aspects of Landscape, the first overview of the artist’s work, compiled to mark his 80th birthday in 2020.