Bales and Magpies

Bales and Magpies

They have watched from their tree for centuries — those sharp-eyed magpies, perched above the stubble fields as the summer bakes the earth hard and golden. Below them, the plough turns the soil and brings up its treasures: flints, fragments, the buried secrets of the land.

This is an English heatwave summer distilled onto canvas. The air shimmers, the bales sit heavy and warm in the field, and the magpies observe it all with their ancient, knowing gaze. Bold colour and dreamlike atmosphere combine in this narrative landscape, where the familiar countryside becomes something almost mythic.

• Medium: Acrylic and wax on deep box linen canvas
• Size: 50 x 50 cm
• One-of-a-kind original

By Olivia Sunda