“There are in our existence spots of time /that with distinct pre-eminence retain /a renovating virtue…”

William Wordsworth

Wordsworth's ‘spots of time’ are significant, memory-laden experiences, primarily encountered outdoors in nature, which have a lasting impact on a person's development and ability to cope with life's challenges. These moments, often brief, possess a unique power to "nourish and invisibly repair" the mind, enhancing pleasure and providing resilience’. This was the first ensemble outing for Richard Gilbert’s watercolours, a recent development sitting alongside, and sometimes the studies for, oil paintings. Presented in an unframed ‘warts and all’ format, his subject matter draws upon landscape in The Marches, where the hills have a sculptural quality like the bumps and hollows of familiar ageing faces.