The Chines of Bournemouth inspired the Chine collection of paintings.

A chine is a steep-sided dry river valley. Alum Chine is the largest of the four chines in Bournemouth and got its name from the alum mining which took place locally in the 16th century. The mines eventually became uneconomical and closed in the mid-17th century and the area was bought by William Dean in 1805 and this began the Cooper-Dean dynasty.

The tropical gardens were laid out in the 1920s, but by the 1990s they had become overrun. In 1996 the gardens were replanted, and a paved viewing area added as part of the Gardens of Excellence scheme in the United Kingdom.

They now serve as a wonderful series of nature walks, threading through the town and provide a calm, peaceful respite from their urban surroundings.

Britain has a long and quietly remarkable relationship with the natural world. For centuries, we’ve cultivated gardens that blur the line between the familiar and the exotic, places where Victorian explorers’ discoveries now grow beside native hedgerow species and small garden birds flit through foliage collected from the other side of the world.

I spend time in botanical gardens, arboretums, and the wilder corners of curated estates, drawn to the areas where foreign plants have taken root in our climate and become part of a uniquely British ecology. At first glance, these scenes look tropical, but they are British, woven into our landscape and shaped by our weather.

Drawing on the tradition of botanical collecting and horticultural exploration, I aim to present a contemporary vision of nature in Britain: one shaped by history, climate, and a deep cultural fascination with the exotic. The paintings invite close inspection, revealing intricate layers of growth, light, and interconnected forms.