Art - Flora McLachlan and Philippa Lithgow

'Roaming the Downs’ is the name given to the collaborative exhibition from mother and daughter, Philippa Lithgow and Flora McLachlan, which is on display this month in Pelham House. Both produce landscapes inspired by their love of the Sussex countryside. Daughter Flora started by reading English at Oxford but later decided to indulge her creative flair after completing an art foundation in Brighton. “It was always something that was around me in the family”, she tells me over the phone. “I remember lying on the floor next to the easel where my mother was painting when I was a child.”
Her work is created using inks rollered onto steel plates. Once the image is ready, she prints it onto damp paper through an etching press. Next, she layers other images over the top to create the finished piece. “Because it's a print you can't see all the layering”, she says, “but it ends up creating pockets of colour that seem to be glowing.”

I tell Flora that her landscapes have a dream-like quality, which is, I learn exactly what she is aiming for. “I'm trying to convey the enchantment of the landscape as it is when there are no humans around”, she says, “A lot of nature seems to be managed for human convenience and so I like the idea of creating a place which is all about the creatures and the hills.” Flora takes her sketchbook into the countryside and makes drawings of details; then she reconfigures the landscape to create an imaginative scene informed by how she feels at the time.“It's not exactly escapism”, she says, “In that I'm not trying to run away from anything, but I'm trying to create a landscape which is totally my own, with no trace of other people.”