The artist knows how to portray the distinctiveness of landscapes as diverse as the barren drama of the Scottish coast, the empty windblown flatlands of the fens, the graphic patterns and pathways of the Dales to contrast with the lush yet ancient quality of the Mediterranean.

The latter unusually describe remnants of human production, of cultural artefacts and echo antiquity. Each of those landscapes seem suspended in time, as if they existed forever and will continue so. Is this the appeal of the work? Speaking of our human desire for arcadia, of an environmental and spiritual harmony, Brian Hindmarch’s landscapes allows us to escape and rediscover what seems out of grasp in our precarious and destructive times. Does this explain that pervading sense of melancholy the viewer experiences? One is reminded of the writings of Thomas Hardy and more so, even, of Edward Thomas. There is evidently a task to be performed that tries to arrest a state of beauty and natural independence, where the land breathes in its own rhythm, not in need of human presence. The land resists our intrusion and produces barriers, obstacles, blind spots to tease us into longing to enter its promises, yet these renderings are glimpses of the forbidden, we are granted a moment to allow for the sweet agony of longing.

Dr Doris Rohr
0.6 Senior Lecturer Fine Art (Drawing)
rohrd@hope.ac.uk
Liverpool Hope University
School of Creative and Performing Arts
Creative Campus