Artist Anna King’s haunting landscapes at 108 Fine Art

Clearing by Anna King. Oil and pencil on paper and board.

By Graham Chalmers

Ghostly landscapes with a difference are the subject of a new exhibition at 108 Fine Art in Harrogate.

Rather than being enraptured by hills and fields, award-winning oil and pencil artist Anna King prefers to find icy, fragile beauty in barren, unclaimed territory.

Starting this Saturday, Anna King - Twelve New Paintings sees this Scottish artist, who graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in 2005, explore wastelands, abandoned buildings and empty pieces of scrub land.

Though based at her studio and home in the Borders, much of Anna’s work is inspired by her visits to deteriorated spaces in the former East Germany.

This gifted artist is particularly fascinated by the Scottish ghost town of Polphail, built to house 500 workers and their families, though never inhabited.

Showing at 108 Fine Art at 16 Cold Bath Road until January 10, Anna has won several major art awards including The Royal Scottish Academy Landscape Award and the Jolomo Lloyds TSB Award.

Art critic Jackie Wullschlager said “An untameable force is echoed in King’s bleakly attractive images of post-industrial landscapes: empty feral places where nature is slowly reclaiming the land.”