My 'hero' artists are all landscape painters and almost all are great painters of trees. The depiction of trees in British art has always been central to a national debate about who we are. My approach to painting trees is project based and I have developed bodies of work centred on the representation of particular, often ancient, trees. Trees fascinate me because they are enduring yet can also be significant in allusion to other stories. I am interested the art historical importance of this particular subject yet recognise too, that the thought of a tree alone is sufficient, as John Clare stated when he said ‘no poem is as beautiful as a tree’. Some of the trees I depict have historical or literary context such as Wordsworth’s Seathwaite Yews and a beech tree at Tarn Hows (bequeathed by Beatrix Potter to the NT). The trees located in Herefordshire range from oaks threatened by development to rewilding birch on former industrial workings. I am frequently drawn to Croft Castle for its venerable chestnuts and oaks.