Abstract Landscape Art Inspired by Place-Based Experience.
- Feb 27
- 5 min read
Updated: 19 hours ago
Place-based thinking affirms the idea that the land around me and beneath my feet is not just a beautiful backdrop to a busy and creative life, it is a living network of relationships: between the earth elements, the flora and fauna and sunlight.
Being aware of this network and spending time observing the interconnected relationships between these elements is my pathway to becoming 'fluent in place' and developing a deeper understanding of a particular environment.
When 'fluency in place' is attained, my feelings of belonging grow stronger and my understanding of my own identity becomes more conscious because of what I am noticing.
| What is 'Fluency in Place'?
When I'm out in nature and I feel present, paying close to attention to what the land looks, feels and sounds like, I'm participating in a relationship with the place, beyond just 'consuming' the scenery.
Sketching or painting out in the environment helps with this process, I'm able to really focus my attention on my surroundings because I'm asking myself to respond to it in some way through paper, paint and pencil. So I have to pause, look, listen, think and then respond through drawing.
The sketches become not just about the place; they are shaped by the place and are of the place.
For me this takes the relevance of these sketches to a new level.
Their very existence is borne of the land and of my unique place-based experience of it, in that moment in time.
| Attaining 'Fluency in Place'
Fluency in place does not come from looking at a map and reading its topography, boundaries or other features.
It comes from observing and being present and aware in an particular environment, which for me is more often than not, nature-based rather than urban-based.
It comes from things like:
learning the direction of the prevailing wind and how it shifts before rain;
noticing which native grasses recover quickly after heat and which hold moisture in their roots;
watching the way ants adjust their paths when the ground hardens, or how certain birds arrive just before the Grevilleas bloom;
the way the height of the tide changes according to the phases of the moon;
which plants grow where;
changes in the colour of the soil;
the way the sunlight hits the trees and creates shade at different times of the day.
Patterns begin to reveal themselves when I am present long enough to see the repetition.
Becoming fluent in place is like learning a language without words.
The vocabulary is seasonal change.
The grammar is pattern and rhythm.
The punctuation is pause or disruption to these regular patterns such as weather events, drought, fire, or flood.
Over time, observation becomes intuitive and anticipation of these changes and differences becomes the norm. The turning of the seasons is sensed before it fully announces itself through obvious visual changes in the landscape.
To attain this level of fluency requires participation:
| Gathering Resources for Abstract Landscape Art
I'm not alone in feeling that I receive greatly from nature, and I know that I can also give back during my pursuit of fluency, by being totally present, fully aware and acutely observant when I am spending time in these environments.
When I spend time observing and paying close attention to details, through sketching and photography, feeling the textures of organic materials and exploring colour palettes as a way to gather visual resources, what I am painting begins to change.
My original artworks, sketches and prints may be abstract, but the shapes, forms and notions of pattern come from my observations of the natural world around me and the lived experience I have of different places.
I think I just naturally absorb facets of nature when I'm out amongst it, passing through it or consciously making art and gathering visual resources within it.
In the studio, this fluency translates into layered artwork:
layered paint mirrors layered soil;
gel prints might be direct impressions taken from the land and it's plants;
glazes echo shifting light across the view;
visual textures hold memories of earth, foliage in the undergrowth, trees and other plants;
colours speak to the changing light levels at different times of the day and in different sorts of weather.
| Taking Sketches Forward into My Paintings
As I move my work into larger artworks within the intention of creating finished pieces, the marks I make are not necessarily literal descriptions of trees or hills; they are responses to the pattern, movement and ecological rhythms that I have observed in nature.
Using abstraction intentionally allows me to distil what I have observed into something felt and expressed rather than depicted.
Often, in the act of painting, I am not consciously referencing a specific place or view.
Instead, I am working from a deep internalised understanding of a place (or several places at once) which becomes a distillation of time spent there.
My abstract shapes and forms are echoes of ecological systems, patterns, plants, and earth elements that I have absorbed by a kind of osmosis.
As I reflect on the fact that I am still developing my fluency of place here in Australia, (having been here 20 or so years - a mere microcosm of time in the grand scheme of things!) I realise how unfamiliar the landscape here is to me in contrast to the Yorkshire Dales in England (where I grew up), which when even looking at a photograph evokes in me feelings familiarity and 'home'.
I am also coming to understand that I see patterns, rather than fragments. Through my en plein air sketching this is coming through strongly.
While I have a sense of the landscape as a whole I am most captivated by the elements of it that repeat as patterns.
Place-based thinking is a way of being in an environment.
It's a practice of noticing.
A commitment to reciprocity with, in my case, nature.
And in this 'practice', it's possible to discover that the land is not only something we inhabit.
It is something that inhabits us.
And when the creation of abstract landscape art comes from this place within me, and is borne of my fluency of place, I feel my work starts to really become alive with the energy of place; and my visual language is truly speaking of that place through paint.
These sketches are being transformed through print and paint in my current original artworks as part of my 'Threshold Series' which will be released in 2026.
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