Towards Wildness is an exhibition curated by local artist Dick Dolan taking place in Woodbridge Library throughout April, with 50% of any sales kindly donated to our Martlesham Wilds campaign. 

Dick explained his inspiration behind the artwork, and his motivation to support the appeal...

‘Since September, one of my preoccupations has been the tension between wildness and control. Today, I cycled the back roads to Snape. Most of the hedges have been flailed and shaped with ruler-straight regularity (some painfully thin and serving little purpose), verges have been mown, new plantings of plastic coated hedging plants have been made, all evenly spaced, some fields have been ploughed and harrowed or covered in plastic - everything neat and tidy as landowners prepare for the growing year. It seems to me we all have an inbuilt need to control and a tendency to overcontrol. Nature, on the other hand, seems to want to cause a mess. I've wanted to be more like Nature. Control leads to regularity and simplification. Wildness leads to confusion and complexity. 

It seems to me that Martlesham Wilds is about setting appropriate starting conditions and letting nature take control. Processes are dynamic. There is no end point. Results may be unexpected and not always 'pretty'. It is difficult not to interfere.

I've tried to incorporate some of the ideas of rewilding in my processes of drawing and painting. The other thing I've been thinking about is 'wabi sabi,' a difficult to define Japanese concept. We can nurture it with our willingness to notice details and cultivate delight in natural things. It recognises that things are impermanent and imperfect. It appreciates asymmetry, modesty, age and texture, simplicity and understatement. There are tensions and contradictions in these ideas."

Thank you, Dick, for your support of our Martlesham Wilds campaign! You can see Dick's beautiful artwork at Woodbridge Library throughout April 2023.