Hill of Hurdles (2010) - Clare Woods

Acquired for Amgueddfa Cymru — National Museum Wales, with support from the Derek Williams Trust.

Amgueddfa Cymru — The National Museum opened in 1927, and has an outstanding collection of 20th-century art, including works by Jacob Epstein, Eric Gill, Sir Stanley Spencer, LS Lowry and Oskar Kokoschka, as well as the largest holding of work by Gwen John and Augustus John. The contemporary collection includes notable works by Frank Auerbach, Lucian Freud and Rachel Whiteread. In July 2011, following a £6.5 million refurbishment, the museum launched the National Museum of Art with six new contemporary galleries.

Clare Woods, born Southampton, completed her BA at Bath College of Art and her MA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College of Art. In the past few years she has had major solo exhibitions both nationally and internationally The Hepworth Wakefield, Stuart Shave/Modern Art, and André Buchmann Galerie, Berlin, and the Chisenhale. Woods is currently based in Kington, Herefordshire, where she finds much inspiration from the surrounding landscape. Her painting, Hill Of Hurdles, is inspired by the landscape around a particular waterfall, ‘Water Break-its-Neck’, an area close to the border between England and Wales. Photographs of these locations, taken at night, are collaged together to create compositions described by the artist as ‘supernaturally charged’. The polished surface of the paintings and seductive layering of colour draws the viewer into an imagined experience of landscape. Woods is inspired by many of the works already within the collection at Wales, where her work has been acquired, such as those by Paul Nash, John Piper and Graham Sutherland.

Hill of Hurdles will be on display in New Perspectives: Landscape Art In Wales since 1970 at The National Museum between June until August 2012.