‘Waiting for you’ is a painting about history and nature

‘Waiting for you’ is another composition on themes I keep coming back to: history and our place within nature.

Detectorists

Fans of BBC TV’s Detectorists will recognise huge chunks of the series within this one painting! Other paintings I have made loosely inspired by Detectorists include Buried Treasure, Dig on Down and Magpie Song. The painting’s title ‘Waiting for you’ is from the theme tune to “Detectorists”, a gorgeous song written by Johnny Flynn. The lyrics are:

Will you search through the loamy earth for me?
Climb through the briar and bramble
I’ll be your treasure…

I felt the touch of the kings and the breath of the wind
I knew the call of all the song birds
They sang all the wrong words
I’m waiting for you
I’m waiting for you

Will you swim through the briny sea for me?
Roll along the ocean’s floor?
I’ll be your treasure

I’m with the ghosts of the men who can never sing again
There’s a place, follow me
Where a love lost at sea
Is waiting for you
Is waiting for you

Time travel

All the life depicted – the PRESENT – is in the central section. It’s sandwiched between the FUTURE at the top of the painting, of which we all know only one thing. And the PAST, which we know a bit about through traces left of what went before us.

The central section of the painting shows a magpie, and hedgehog within the ‘briar and bramble’ as in Johnny Flynn’s song. There’s also a white hart, a recurring symbol in English folklore with possibly associations with the legend of Herne the Hunter.

The bottom part of the painting is the PAST and dominated by a ship-shaped burial site. Ship burials are found in Scandinavia and the Baltic. And notably at Sutton Hoo, UK. We have ship burials in Denmark. Mine is not a specific site, instead I have used some of the stones from my local stone circle – the Rollrights – to mark out the shape. And beneath this shape, as well as a ring-pull, so frequently found by metal detectorists, down in “the loamy earth”, lurk some treasures from human history.

“I’ll be your treasure”

‘Waiting for you’, features a selection of archaeological treasures, roughly going back in time.

1. General Service button from World War II – 20th century
2. George III 18th century ‘cartwheel’ penny
3. Medieval ‘long cross’ silver penny from the 13th century
4. Pewter hawking whistle. These were used in the Medieval to Tudor period to call back a bird
5. The phenomenal ‘Alfred jewel’ – the head of an aestel from the 9th century on display in my local museum in Oxford
6. A 7th century Viking ship burial. In this case loosely inspired by Sutton Hoo, and with visual reference to the ship preserved in Oslo. In this painting I have used my imagination, and included designs from Viking jewellery
7. Roman bronze coin from the 4th century depicting Constantine
8. A simple clay drinking vessel from the 1st century. (‘Detectorists’ fans will understand the significance of this)
9. The breathtaking Shropshire sun pendant from 1000–800BC which I saw at the British Museum in April 2022. It blew my mind!

Signed prints, size A2, are available to pre-order now. The image on the print is the same size as the original painting. Pre-order yours today!