Rediscovering this sceptred isle - new art show in Petworth

Chantelle Rountree, associate director, said: “We welcome Gordon Rushmer back for his fifth solo exhibition. Over the last few years, with restrictions to travel, we all came to appreciate our own homes and the landscapes around us. As the UK opened up, more and more people travelled around Britain rekindling their love of this sceptred isle. Gordon amongst them travelled the length and breadth of Britain soaking up the stunning scenery and daily life and transferring his passions to paper through his skilled use of watercolour and oil. His collection of paintings encapsulates this revival of our love affair with the British landscape and reflects Gordon’s own increasing obsession with early-20th century British watercolour.

“Gordon is one of the few contemporary British watercolourists to have been included in Tate Britain’s much vaunted exhibition Watercolour in 2011. Earlier this year, we launched Gordon’s new book Pinching Myself: an Artist at War which tells the fascinating story of Gordon’s time as a war artist based in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Eritrea from 1997 to 2007. The original artworks, which depicted the harrowing scenes of war that he experienced as an official war artist, have this year been taken into the collection of the Imperial War Museum.”

Gordon was born in Petersfield, and although his painting takes him across the world he still lives in the south of England. His success as a landscape painter is matched by his reputation as a war artist. In recent years he has worked in areas of conflict as diverse as Bosnia, Kosovo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and Iraq. He has paintings in major collections including The National Library of Wales, ICI, HM Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the late Nelson Mandela, The Royal Marines, The Royal Netherlands Marine Corps, The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, The Royal Marines Museum, The Mariniers Museum Rotterdam, The House of Lords, Lincoln’s Inn and the National Army Museum.