News & upcoming show:

The Biggar & Upper Clydesdale Museum

3rd-30th June

(Private View Fri 3rd June / rsvp: phoebecope@gmail.com)

Tel: 01899 221 050

Opening Times: Tues-Sat 10-5 / Sun 1-5

(please scroll down to view work)

Phoebe Cope: Recent Paintings & Sculpture:

The exhibition comprises of a few different bodies of work from the past decade. List of works also below. Most of the work below is on display in the Museum, the rest may be seen by appointment.

Notes on the process of painting, 29th May 2022: The series from this Spring was painted an hour from Biggar in  Dumfries House, Cumnock, East Ayrshire, home to an array of social enterprises under the umbrella of the Prince’s Foundation.  There,  I was interested in the bustling daily activity: the building team off for a quick lunch in a van; the maintenance team in high vis jackets adding wood chip and gravel to the playground beneath the Redwoods after rain. I liked the pockets of wilderness left: I depicted some spindly ash and birch, self seeded, that manage to remain untouched despite deliberate planting all around in the arboretum.The organic vegetable garden seems to follow biodynamic principles with its  circular format centred on a pagoda. There is a  newly planted Dye garden on my left, with Woad and Madder. Groups of people came in to learn how to sow potatoes. The high footfall means  the paths don’t need much weeding luckily, given herbicides can’t be used. Comfrey was stewing  in metal vats of water  along the walls awaiting use.

I often return to paintings year after year at the particular moment in the season. Scots pines in Autumn, 2017-2022 grew a couple of metres higher.  Others are made with help of drawings done on the spot, so don’t need to change so much as the slower paintings, as that particular moment  of flux has been  economically captured. My information gathered is eyeballed both from what is directly present in front of me as well as from memory.  A photographic image may remind me I was somewhere at a particular date and enlist a few facts about a given scene. But it stimulates me little enough to draw or paint from. Maybe this preferred taste is equivalent to a frozen mouse being less appetising than a  warm wriggling  one for the hungry cat or snake. Vitalistic drawing  practice  can also be related to the practice of hunting and gathering. The human eye had to be attuned to tracking animals  and noticing and distinguishing the delicate imprints left by prey. The ability to read a landscape and pick up nuances was crucial to survive. So drawing grows out of an innate need to pick up fragments of dark and light, essential data to have in order to reach a decision within a split second. There is a lot of writing currently on the re-wilding of the self, as well as that of the landscape. Considering this I look at myself and family, with a perspective that tries to be more in tune  with primeval understanding.

Because painters see the world slowly getting interested in the patterns of life before them, they can be difficult to travel with as straightforward sightseeing always regards big panache events as more interesting and worthy of seeing . Painters can be entertained on little - look at Morandi and his variations of grey vases on grey  or Uglow and his lemons lying like  monuments on plinths. Being around painters, if you don’t paint, may  be like accompanying someone fishing if you don’t fish, or golfing if you don’t golf. I say all this because I have got to know a few painters quite well having only ever lived with them. Yet it can be exciting if you can regard or practice  it as a sort of a sport. The pace of activity is both very slow and super quick. Like you can whack a golf ball miles ahead or you can do hardly perceptible strokes with minute tweaks that seem to go on forever never getting inside the hole. Sometimes  you feel you  are even going backwards if such little progress has happened.

Dumfries House, Spring 2022

Building Team, Redwoods, 30x42cm, oil on wood

Redwoods & Slides, 30x42cm oil on wood

Maintenance Team & Redwoods, 42x90cm, oil on wood

Kauffman Organic Vegetable Garden, 42x60cm, oil on linen

Large Quartet landscape 2021-2022

Old Hawthorn with ripe haws, Kilbucho Manse Burn

65cmx110cm x 4 (260cmx110cm) oil on linen

Local Trees Series, 12 months of the Year 2020-2021, oil on linen, 76x62cm.

January Holm Oak Norfolk

February Lichen, holly, vase, children

March Blackthorn, hen run, Norfolk

April, newts, burn, rainbow dress

May, seagull shirt, drawing by burn, badger wood

June, Evening Primrose, Honesty, Sequoia, Platinum grandma

July, Cherry Tree, tin bath tub, Norfolk

August, Chilli, Courgette, Tomato, Quinoa in poly tunnel

September, Birch, seed heads

October, Scots pine, pyre 2017-2021

November, Plum, Kitchen carpentry

December, Sycamore with moss, tree planting

Cardon hill views 2013-2015, 105x110cm, oil on linen.

South East, Woodshed, sycamore, allium, June

South, Wigeon duck, palette, lawn, autumnal Beech, November

South West, Dovecote, hosta, Beech, September

Flower series 2014-2018, Oil on linen or wood, 60x50cm

Pale pink James Grieve Apple Blossom against a wall , 2017-19

Peonies and pushchair with Tessa holding feet  2017

Blue agapanthus flowers with Andrew’s curls, 2017

Pink bright dahlias and shorn sheep, 2014

Norfolk Triptych 2018-2021, Oil on linen 45x60cm

Andrew with arms spread  out and Tessa feedings hens in hen run (in brown)

Andrew with Tessa in buggy with Cherry and holly tree (in brown)

Andrew learning to ride bike with Tessa sweeping with lime tree & vine

Interiors Oil on linen 62x76cm 2021

Watching television with grandparents Norfolk

Bathroom & Playroom with church view and ship/ and with snow Norfolk

Tessa playing bucket drum in poly tunnel with kale & runner beans

Group studies 2021-2022 oil on linen

Biggar Forest School with elm and larch in Autumn , 55x80cm

The Spring Drumelzier Drawing Art workshop 105x110cm

Drawing on paper series 2020, 70x50cm

Attic Play

Bath time

Nature Table

Kitchen Carpentry

Burn with newts

Burn with badger wood

Tessa and jug with sycamore 60x50

Andrew and Tessa, in blue ink,  60x50 2018

Large paintings

East Anglian landscape, Autumn,  Oil on linen, 95x150cm, 2019

The black hill with sheep, gate, potentilla, irises, Oil on linen,110x150cm, 2012-2014

Small paintings 2021-22 Oil on board 30x42cm

Autumn beech hedge

Autumn Ash and plum in yellow

Autumn studio with pink roof

Tiny paintings 2021-22 Oil on board 20x30cm.

Bonfires and clearance

Chicken coup, Norfolk

Holm oak & Church, Norfolk

Sculpture

Series of sand stone pieces Noah and dove; Wild Cat; Black Grouse.

Bronze sculpture of Family group is quarter life size. First it was modelled in clay, then cast into wax and then poured all at the Powder hall bronze foundry, 2019-2021

Painting Prices:

According to sizes; bespoke prices would be similar.

20x30 £350

30x42 £700

45x60 £1250

50x60 £2000

42x90 £1750

62x76 £2500

55x80 £2250

110x105 £4000

110x260 £9000

Drawing commission prices: 70x50cm £1500

Sculpture: family group quarter life size clay modelling: £2500

Please scroll down this page to view work