Dartmoor: Theatre of Light. Paintings by Ric W. Horner

Introduction by Ian Mortimer. 2016. £9.99. 28pp. ISBN 978-0992604417

Ric Horner is one of the country’s leading landscape painters, whose professional career spans more than 25 years. This is the catalogue of his new show, which presents a new series of views of Dartmoor.

After graduating from Exeter College in 1989, Ric spent two years living and working in Devon. It was here on Dartmoor that he developed a profound engagement with light and distance. This engagement continued to drive his art forward after he moved away, so that he has subsequently become one of the foremost exponents of painting the spaces we ‘want to walk into’ when we view a landscape. In addition, his work developed a metaphorical dimension, in his images of pathless woods, tremulous vapour clouds, a lost buoy amongst crashing ocean waves, a dark path leading towards the light of home and eerily empty streets of Pompeii.

Above all else it is his ability to paint light and distance that marks his work out as that rare thing – a truly contemporary approach to landscape painting. Yet the paintings themselves are also strangely timeless.This is the mark of a technically brilliant painter. In defiance of a society that is sometimes suspicious of virtuosity, Ric allows us the enormous satisfaction of joining a serious artist at the height of his powers in contemplation of the natural world that embraces us all.

Cross Tree Press is proud to be associated with Ric in publishing the catalogue of the exhibition, which is available at The Green Hill Arts Gallery, Moretonhampstead (telephone: +44 (0)1647 440775, Tues-Sat), or direct from Cross Tree Press. Please email books@crosstreepress.co.uk to arrange payment and delivery (Paypal preferred). The price is £9.99 inclusive of postage to the UK.

In addition, six paintings from the exhibition are available as cards and postcards. The prices is £0.60 each or £3.00 for six. Email sales@crosstreepress.co.uk to arrange payment and delivery. Please add £1.50 postage and packing per order.

Two of Ric's paintings (below) are now greetings cards: they are £2.40 each or £12 for six. Email sales@crosstreepress.co.uk to arrange payment and delivery. Please add £1.20 postage and packing per order.