Mark Rowney
A piece of work that imagines the life that occurs in the quiet corners of the fields during the solitude of the night.
I made the drawings while out walking at night. The Moths were attracted to the well lit bare light bulb of an open door to a farm house. It struck me how unsettling and yet beautiful the scene was.
Summer’s Meadow
Acrylic on Birch Panel
The Strange Effect of Light
Acrylic on Birch Panel
Hunters Moon
Acrylic on Birch
An evocation of the Period of the full moon in October where local farmers are able to fill their stores. Among them fly the beautiful creatures that go unnoticed despite being drawn to our own light.
All works were created between 2016 - 2022
Night Watch
When I was young I used to slide into my Wellington boots, grab a torch and venture out into the dark woods that encircled our home. There always seemed a stillness at night, apart from the almost imperceptible snuffling of Hedgehogs or the brush of the Badgers stroll. I would Illuminate Tawny Owls perched on the high branches of Beech trees and observe Tiger moths resting on forests of Rosebay Willowherb. my wanderings would not take me far from home but such a distance from the bright transparency of my daytime excursions. Sometimes the Moon would light my way and I could walk silently down to the river's edge and watch the faint trembling flight of Pipistrelle Bats and Sea Trout, their nose upstream, waiting for any insect floating down the murky water.
It is incredible what there is to see at night, that is once your eyes have become adjusted to the darkness. On late summer evenings the magical flickering dance of nocturnal moths, their presence lit by the farm's window lamps, their camouflaged wings exposed against the black curtain of the sky. Beetles scurry to avoid the eager tongues of my pond’s frogs and the Golden Rudd weave elegantly around the lily pads. For the last year or so I have been trying to capture some of these nightly happenings. In a way, shining a light on the magic of darkness. Sometimes my own colour palette makes dark images. All too difficult to hang on the neutral based walls of a country house. To me though they might simply hang like a window at night. One from which if you're lucky enough might reveal the beauty of raven black and some of the life that inhabits it. Somewhere in a field near to where we live,
Harebells light up and Bees and Crane-fly and Ladybirds and voles, declare a truce and gather round its glow. Hush, go quietly and don't tell a soul.