Andrew Hardwick 'Scarred Wilderness'

‘ A n d r e w H a r d w i c k ‘ S c a r r e d W i l d e r n e s s ’

The exhibition represents two years of returning to known 

landscapes. Like those of the estuary and coast around Portishead, 

where I work and grew up. Also that of the moors. Exmoor and 

Dartmoor especially, where as a regular visitor I return for solace. 

These landscapes are personal, known, remembered yet at the 

same time, strange and always new, when revisited. 

The landscapes are embedded in my personal history; their scars, 

both geological and historical are joined with mine and all washed 

over by the power of the elements and time. 

Working in the studio, I try, with conglomerates of texture, to 

express something of these feelings. Oil paint, acrylic paint, earth 

pigments, ashes, glue, plastic, hay and other found or discarded 

material might find a place. Ever present in the image is the sky, 

which I find hard to deny. 

In some images, ghost-like abandoned quarries, forgotten roads 

and railway tracks appear. They are explained in paint, matter 

and old toys. A plastic jet disturbs one painting of a seemingly 

tranquil vast moor. It is a modern world.

Increasingly my places are upset by walkers and new nature 

reserves. The walkers come from new housing estates that have 

sanitised and replaced the post-industrial wilderness that ran 

alongside the estuary. 

Even the old burnt-out cars have now gone, swallowed up by the 

ground, their lives now joining those, of earlier and more ancient 

artefacts below. Helping on a local archaeological dig, I found in 

the medieval layer, clay pipes and pottery all infused with heating 

oil leaking from a nearby office. 

It is a landscape of strangeness and contradiction. I like to 

contrast the the power of this coast and the moorland wilderness 

I visit, by including their car parks and roads that take people into 

their depths. Also to show a playfulness of the modern world by 

producing my images out of materials that perhaps could have 

been taken out of a skip. 

As always when visiting old friends, there are certainties mixed 

with surprises. Love, regret, joy, fear, feelings of loss, and time 

now gone, but also of renewal and celebration. 

Andrew Hardwick. 2015 

3

White Sea, Estuary, Wind and Cows 

mixed media on panels | 175 x 351 cm 

4

Abandoned Quarry, Moor and Sea 

mixed media on panels | 180 x 345 cm 

6

High Moor and Jet Fighter (Roar) 

mixed media on panel | 151 x 245 cm 

8

Old Quarry, Road, Moor and Wind 


11

Late Light, Beach, Brown Estuary and Car Park 


12

Estuary, Bream, Brown Coast 


15

Purple Estuary, Beach and Old Railway Sidings 


16

Winter, Moor, Yellow Light 

18 

mixed media on panel | 123 x 152 cm

Winter, Moor, Valley, Sunset 


19

Estuary, Cliffs, Beach 

20 


Estuary, Cliffs and Car Park 


21

Estuary, Purple Sea, Wind, Clouds 

22 


Wind, Cloud, Moor 


23

Estuary, Wind, Grey Sea 

24 


Valley and Clouds 


25

Late Light, Headland 


27

Estuary, Coast 

28 


High Moor and Road 


29

Dull Day, Dark Moor 

30 


Estuary, Cliffs and Beach 


31

Beach Estuary 

32 


Black Estuary 


33

Wind, Rain and Buried Car 

34 


High Moor, Grey Light 


35

Wind, Rain, Wilderness 

36 


Autumn Purple Moor 


37

Grey Sky, Dartmoor 

38 


Old Workings, Wind, White and Blue Sky 


39

Two Horses, Moor and Standing Stone 


40

Published by Millennium to coincide with the exhibition ‘Scarred Wilderness’ by Andrew Hardwick 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted 

in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without permission 

Photography by Joseph Clarke 

Publication produced by Impact Printing Services 

M I L L E N N I U M 

Street-an-Pol 

St. Ives 

Cornwall 

01736 793121 

mail@millenniumgallery.co.uk 

www.millenniumgallery.co.uk

Andrew Hardwick 'Scarred Wilderness'

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