Summer Solstice

Original oil painting on gesso board

16 × 22.5 cm

This little painting was created for a special birthday. 

Inspired by gold-ground painting and the painted ‘frames’ of illuminated manuscripts, it contains symbolic elements reflecting aspects of the recipient’s life and loves.

Wittenham Clumps features centrally, with the setting summer solstice sun and the waxing gibbous moon as it was on the day the recipient was born.

The 23ct gold leaf ‘frame’ contains, clockwise from top right: a cuckoo in a beech tree - representing the myth that if you capture a cuckoo in the beech trees on Wittenham Clumps at midsummer, it will stay summer forever, guelder rose, apple mint, chamomile, honeysuckle, juniper. All these symbols carry special meaning for the individual.