Rock Cleft on Skye, watercolour by Jane Paige-Leycester

The Land Gallery has just received a new watercolour by Jane: Rock Cleft on Skye.

Jane is a watercolour artist with a special interest in wild plants and the landscape they inhabit. She trained as a teacher with art as her main subject and continues to teach art in general and botanical illustration in particular.

She is a Founder Member of the Society of Botanical Artists and a Fellow of the Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium Society, London. Her work has been shown with the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours and the Royal Watercolour Society open exhibitions. She has illustrated books for the RSPB and BBC Publications. She participated in the Artists for Nature project in Extremadura in Spain and also the New Forest project "Drawn to the Forest". Always interested in natural history, she prefers to work on site, very rarely finishing paintings in the studio.

WATERCOLOUR PAINTINGS OF UNIQUE AND EXQUISITE ORCHIDS
and other plants of the Himalayas
by HEMLATA PRADHAN

17 March - 1 May 2011
Opening Reception Thursday 17 March 5:30pm - 8:30pm

Serindia Gallery
O.P. Garden
Soi Charoenkrung 36
Charoenkrung Road
Bangkok 10500
Thailand
Tel: 02 238 6410
serindiagallery@gmail.com

Botanical illustration is a genre that reflects the development of art and science for over 500 years. In the Renaissance there was an interest in naturalism and expeditions that left Europe in search for new lands led to new discoveries of plant species. In the 17th and 18th century, botanical art gained popularity in the west, especially England and Scotland where gardening became popular among aristocrats who began collecting and cataloguing exotic and native plants. Sadly, this painting genre has begun to fade in modern times.

This exhibition features watercolour paintings by India's foremost botanical painters - HEMLATA PRADHAN. A gifted child in the Pradhan family that has run orchid nursery for three generations in the hills of Kalimpong, Sikkim, Hemalta Pradhan graduated with a diploma in botanical illustrations from Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, with scholarship from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, Canada, and a Master's Degree in Natural History Illustration from the Royal College of Art, London, with scholarship from the Association of Commonwealth Universities, London. It is rare in modern days to see such a talent in botanical illustrations: orchids and plants are alive in her paintings, which also are scientific records of vanishing species.

Amongst some large works of orchids in habitat, other paintings in the show include Bailey's Himalayan Blue Poppy, studies of Himalayan Cobra Lilies, and also a painting of Himalayan Blue Bamboo from the collection of her father Udai C. Pradhan, one of India's renowned botanists.

Pradhan's works have been exhibited at the British Museum and are in the collection of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, England. The Kingdom of Bhutan also commissioned her for its orchid stamps.