This is an exhibition of watercolours and sketches by well-known North Yorkshire wildlife and landscape artist Jonathan Pomroy.

For a chance to meet Jonathan, please feel free to join us at the Preview evening on Thursday 3rd April. 6-8pm. Complimentary glass of wine on arrival. To book a free place, please contact us on visit@yorkshirearboretum.org or ring 01653 648598.

Jonathan has shown his work very widely, including two previous one-man exhibitions here, where he was artist in residence in 2020/21. He has used his artwork for Swift and House Martin conservation, winning the Birdscapes Art for Conservation Award at The Society of Wildlife Artists 60th exhibition at the Mall Galleries in 2023. Last year, the 61st SWLA exhibition, he won the Michael Harding Watercolour Painting Prize. He is author of On Crescent Wings- a Portrait of the Swift and has illustrated other books including The Screaming Sky by Charles Foster and The Ring Ouzel: a View from the North York Moors by Vic Fairbrother and Ken Hutchinson.

He exhibits work each year with North Yorkshire Open Studios and Global Birdfair at Rutland Water and in June 2025 will be exhibiting at the Scottish Ornithologists Club headquarters at Aberlady. He loves sketching en plein air in all winds and weathers and believes that art can have an important role to play in conservation.

Comment from Jonathan about this exhibition;

“This exhibition is simply drawings and paintings of birds and trees. Trees provide shelter, food and nesting sites for so many species of birds. But I also stand back and look at the trees for their beauty. My artist's residency at Yorkshire Arboretum in 2020/21 made me look at trees afresh. I was particularly fascinated by the shadows of branches cast on the trunks and ground beneath. I began to really look at how different one tree is from another which gave me new inspiration to sketch.”

 “The exhibition also looks at many familiar species of birds and regular arboretum visitors might recognise portraits of individual trees in the grounds. To me these become so familiar that they feel like friends each with their own character and that is what I try to sketch.”