OX Country Meets: Endellion Lycett Green

This summer the Laura Lopes Gallery presents works by botanical artist Endellion Lycett Green in the Tithe Barn at Thyme. Through her art, Lycett Green pays testament to the inspiration she finds in the natural world. This solo show demonstrates the breadth of her talent, with typical large-scale paintings celebrating the forms and colours of the earth’s flora and fauna. Also to be discovered are a series of paintings inspired by Thyme’s water meadows. Painted last summer, these represent a celebration of previously endangered species, such as the Wild Orchid, which now thrive on the estate. We were delighted to have the opportunity to speak with her and learn more.

How did you come to be involved with Thyme?

My dealer Laura Lopes suggested we look at the 17th century Tithe barn at Thyme as a possibility for doing a solo show there. I was completely taken with its strength and beauty and we decided then and there to go ahead with it. I spent two years visiting the gardens to draw and paint so that the show would be filled with works of the place.

The title of your exhibition, And I Saw Solomon’s Seal is very intriguing. How did you come to this name?

The flowers of Solomon’s Seal are tucked away underneath the leaves so that you don’t immediately notice it in woodland or a garden. The title of this piece refers to the excitement of seeing the drop shaped cream flowers secreted away for the first time in the Spring. The show is titled after this painting because it relates to seeing anything coming out, and the wonderment that ensues if you have a particular liking for it.

Your use of colour is striking. Can you tell us more?

Green is definitely a colour that gets mixed to within an inch of its life on a daily basis. Nature provides a myriad of hues of green that are important to get to know, even if you’re only vaguely getting it right. My palette is very limited so all the colours I’m using for the works are mixed from scratch so to speak. I introduced Magenta to the palette a few years back to help with the violets and iridescent blues I wanted to make…until then there was only Alizarin Crimson to achieve these with French Ultramarine. As a painter it is obviously important to have a sense of colour, which inevitably spills into the home, but as with style, I try not to be consciously aware of this sensibility, allowing it to occur naturally.

When and how did you develop your style?

I’m completely unaware of any style, that is something that may or may not emerge through working on paintings throughout one’s life. As far as I’m aware I take each painting as it comes, treating it as if it was the first and last picture I’ll ever paint. I paint as authentically as I can, true to the subject matter I am depicting. That is all I can do.

Which other artists and creators do you most admire?

George Shaw; Edgar Degas; Gwen John; Stanley Spencer; Ken Kiff; Lucian Freud; Paul Gauguin; Milton Avery; Peter Doig; Ellsworth Kelly; Barbara Hepworth; Hilma af Klint; Rennie Mackintosh; Dora Marr; Zurbaran; Bridget Riley; Wes Anderson; Jamie XX; Erykah Badu; Yotam Ottolenghi.

Can you describe your own garden?

My garden is full of overblown dog roses, cow parsley, foxgloves and cow parsley all of which have arrived from the wider landscape. I do have a couple of formal flower beds but even these have wild things creeping in. I’m an extremely lazy gardener preferring to watch and look at the plants rather than garden. Thank heavens for rewilding! My blue garden is filled with scillas, pale blue Russian snowdrops, muscari, bluebells, buglossoides, hosta ‘Halcyon’ and ferns – it is a wooded area but again very scruffy looking.

Would you agree that all art is autobiography? If so, what does your work say about you?

My paintings are in a way a visual diary of the places I have visited and plants I have loved, from the wild to other people’s gardens as well as public ones. The gardens of friends and relatives feature very strongly in my pictures. So in that way I suppose you could say that my art is autographical. The progression of my technique certainly parallels the ways in which I have been thinking over time.

I understand this will be your first solo show in ten years. How does that feel?

I have been extremely busy with up to three group shows a year over the past decade, so I have only really recently had time in my schedule to make a solo show once more. It takes two years to garner a body of work such as this. From planning to evolving and then completing.

Finally, have you any idea of what you will be working on next?

I have the London Art Fair in September to prepare for, but in the studio it will be business as usual up until then. I’m going to make some more grasses paintings, and I have larger paintings in the pipeline. Onwards and ever upwards.

Endellion Lycett Green will be exhibiting in the Tithe Barn at Thyme, Southrop until 6 September 2024. For more information visit thyme.co.uk or lauralopes.co.uk.