Travelling to new and unfamiliar places provides that special experience of heightened awareness. If I can capture this sensation before it fades into familiarity it can provide a series of remembered, drawn or photographed images which often enables me to start new pieces of work.

My brief stay in Euskirchen in February 2005 and particularly the excursions with Wolfgang Metzler into different areas of the Eifel have given me the opportunity to create some new images - the extra magic of fresh falling snow added to the overall impression and was an important element.

For a long time I have been drawn to landscapes with remnants of our earliest ancestors, stone circles, tumili, ‘cup and ring’ Bronze Age stone carving, hill forts etc. Many of my paintings refer to such places, often with an aerial viewpoint and are quite difficult to ‘read’. I try to give clues about the subject in the titles of each painting or piece of work, I hope this is helpful in giving an insight - this does not mean other interpretations, ideas or impressions are ‘wrong’.

The surface of natural materials is also important to me, weather - worn rocks, grooves, lichens and so on. I hope the varied surfaces of my work reflect this.


Mike Ashley
Lonsdaleia-eifel
Wood, metal, perspex, acrylic. 2005


Wolfgang Metzler
O.T.
Holz, 2003

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