The Oak Year

The Oak Year, an artwork by Scottish artist Anne Gilchrist, will be showing for 2 days at Edinburgh Palette, 151 London Road, Edinburgh www.edinburghpalette.co.uk. It comprises 24 painted panels 5 ft × 4 ft and depicts portraits of many hundreds of oak leaves from real specimens from one oak wood on the shore of Loch Tay, Perthshire. It shows a whole year's worth of leaves, and the close observational depiction shows variety of shape, size, predation, autumn colours, first leaves, and winter fallen leaves. Each leaf in The Oak Year is painted from a real specimen, all from one oak wood.

"Having started in April 2014, this work is now finished," says Scottish artist Anne Gilchrist. "It is made up of many hundreds of individual oak leaves painted from real-life specimens gathered week by week. Each leaf's 

Study for The Oak Year and...	...an individual leaf

portrait is my immediate response to colour, form and character.

"In painting each leaf I left a trace of my observations and experiences, a trail of time passing through growth and change and decay. The whole year is now represented, from tiny emergent leaves breaking the monotonous brown of winter, through the bright green of spring, the tough, dark leaves of summer, the colour bursts of autumn, and back again to the browns of winter. I am showing all these panels at Edinburgh Palette alongside examples of the work in different printed formats (posters, cards etc), a scale model showing a suggested display, as well as related work on oaks I have produced over the years (drawings, paintings, installations)."

Preview evening Friday 26 August 2016, 6.00 – 8.00pm
During which Anne will paint The Last Leaf 

Anne has created other work with oaks, including the two "Cryptic pieces" shown in the photos below, taken in Dalkeith Old Wood, a  venerable oak wood near Edinburgh: 

Cryptic pieces taken in Dalkeith Old Wood
A partial view of The Oak Year	Artist Anne Gilchrist

For more information: www.annegilchrist.co.uk