Katy Alston

Gateway, Wistanstow

Pigments, Tempera
Panel
29.5 x 20.5 cm

£750

“It is a view from our village; I enjoy painting subjects I have had time to get to know. After living here for thirty years I have a relationship with these older parts of the village. The subject is also a puzzle – what is the gateway leading to?  

I spent time to understand how the bike tracks run, it actually shows which way the mystery cyclist was headed. I was trying to describe all the ways in which people’s influence shows on the natural materials – from the marks on the stones, the bulbs growing through the grass, the cycle marks, the arrangement of trees left in the landscape and the way the fencing follows the contour of the land. 

The hill is the Ragleth hill, one of the Shropshire hills, the outline of which firmly plants the gateway in its geography.  

Like much of my work it is about time, the gate looks as if it isn’t moved anymore, it is wedged open. Both it and the dressed stone pillars hint of a time when work was made slowly, in the smithy or the stonemason’s yard. The bicycle tracks are there to show time again but this time a transient element.”