Artist Statement

There are many stresses in daily life. Much of the time we feel like we are grappling with unsolvable problems. We do the best we can to cope with the realities that life throws at us. All the time, these daily trials fill our minds and go relentlessly round and round in circles, usually with no clear solution. You just have to do the best you can, and the overthinking becomes as pointless as it is exhausting.

That is how life often is for me. But I use the ‘we’ form, because I guess it is like this for most other people too.

Oscar painting by the Pond, Winter 2025.

When I arrive at Denmans Garden, a subject or viewpoint usually grabs me at random, and fairly quickly after arrival on site. I rarely ‘feel like’ drawing, painting or working at anything; yet I am always in a hurry to start. After about 10 minutes of laboriously whipping unwilling hands and brain into action, something clicks, and my activity takes on a rhythm and momentum. Energy, intelligence and focus seem to come from nowhere, and I am no longer unwilling. I become wholly engaged in what I am doing, and the problems and complexity of real life float off, because in that moment of concentration, there is no room for them anymore. The over-thinking/obsessive problem-solving part of my brain gets a rest.

In this sense, a visit to Denmans is for me an escape in a very real and renewing way. Paradoxically I get the same feeling (of release, through creative activity), when dancing to loud Jazz, funk or soul music in a club!

But even as a passive visitor, I think that the garden has a de-stressing and rejuvenating effect. On days when I arrive at Denmans feeling less stressed, and with less time-pressure, I sometimes just sit still for several minutes in a selected sunny spot, before picking up my tools. I just watch, listen, and wait; soaking up the vibe, and listening out for bird sounds, or just the wind in the trees. I would guess that most people feel this regenerative peace on entering Denmans Garden; hence the strategic placement of the blue park benches, which are a familiar repeating feature throughout.

The Pond as drawn on a winter’s day.

Very often, after drawing/painting for ten minutes or so, I am visited by a curious or hopeful Robin, flitting about in nearby undergrowth. Denmans is a big site. Though it feels like the same Robin each time, I know this can’t possibly be the case. There must be several individuals or pairs, with clearly marked territories. But they feel like the same bird to me, because they always behave in the same inquisitive way. A few times I throw the bird some biscuit crumbs, thinking that’s what the bird is after, but always the bird is startled by my interaction, and just flies away, leaving the crumbs unseen on the ground…

I have been an avid observer and enjoyer of gardens long before I started my residency at Denmans. But that does not mean that I wholly understand gardening, and I am certainly not a gardener myself. Why do people do this? What deeply buried primeval nerve are people reactivating when they turn gardener, as many people do, when by accident, design, rent or sale, they find themselves with power over a small patch of land behind or in front of their home?

‘You ‘ave it, Son, – and I’ll play it!’. This catchline from a 1970s TV tea advert of my youth jumps into my mind when I think of my relationship, as resident-artist, to the Denmans Garden environment. I’m no gardener, and I guess I feel like that about most gardens I’ve known, including my mother’s gardens down the years, from South London and Guildford to Bauge en Anjou, and now in Bognor Regis.

In the advert, a pair of Chimpanzee removal men labour up some back stairs with a piano. The younger Chimp on the lower stair slips his grip and declares ‘Dad, – The Piano’s on my foot’. At that point no further movement is possible, hence the finishing catchline.

Volunteers at work at Denmans Garden.

And so, when I turn up at Denmans to draw/paint, I see volunteers and professionals labouring daily, with energy and persistence in shaping this special and enchanted place. Their ‘art material’ is the infinite chaos and complexity of nature. The trees, plants and flowers are the sculptors’ clay being modelled by the gardener. But unlike clay, infinite nature is not inert. It does what it does, because that is what it does. The skilled gardener is playing with this tendency, sometimes steering it, sometimes battling against it. Design versus chaos? Or design combining with chaos? An echo of original creator of Denmans’ Joyce Robinson’s concept of Glorious Disarray.

To have permission from Gwendolyn and the team to be the official enjoyer, observer, and art-maker is a privilege which I don’t take lightly. In this way, like the elder Chimp in the advert, the gardeners ‘have it’ while I ‘play it’. Similarly, the house guest always enjoys and savours a meal much more than the hosting cook who makes it. In the struggle of creation and boiling pots, the cook becomes immune to the smells and tastes of the dish…

I think most of the works I made during this period explore or present this relationship; sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. I enjoy the designs the gardener creates such as the ‘dry riverbed’ arrangement, as well as the steering and use of the garden as a living ‘outdoor room’ to be used, not just an inert ornament to be gloated on.

I also enjoy the way nature is constantly outgrowing the design, as fast as a small child outgrows their shoes. My initial feelings are of puzzlement.  I witness avid gardeners, (professional or amateur), passionately designing, manipulating, and nurturing a selection of trees, shrubs, plants and flowers, which often had no previous connection with that particular location, bashing them into a form, shape and design which concurs approximately to the secret vision and ideal of the gardener-maker.

It is for me easier to understand the logic to the re-wilding approach to land use. In re-wilding projects humans are making a concerted effort to ‘let Nature take its course’ (with a nurturing nudge here, and a re-introduction of an extinct species there….) This a has a proven logic stemming directly from the human realisation that Humans cannot live outside of Nature, but only as a component of it, and that the present ‘consumptive’ trajectory of Human Culture and Economics, is unsustainable in the long term. Anybody with half an eye on the diligent findings of Science can see that we have been rapidly asset-stripping Planet Earth and slowly gassing ourselves into the bargain since the Industrial Revolution, and the more recent digital tech revolution seems to have accelerated this process and further unhinged the greed and short-term thinking of Humans everywhere.

Nature as part of the Garden’s design.

But the motivations behind gardens and gardeners is not the same as environmentalists. Though there are many shared goals, and they are united in their shared and love and nurturing of Nature, the urge to cultivate gardens is maybe more instinctive, and less logically explained than the urge to ‘conserve’ the Natural World.

The puzzled question of why do Humans do gardens (?), stays with me.

What’s that about really?

Well, it’s the same puzzlement and question behind engagement with any creative activity. I mean why do I make images and artworks? What are they for? What is their practical or logistical use? Absolutely none, when compared to the skills and products of a plumber, a builder, or an engineer! So why do I do it?

I have no logical answer. There is no logical answer. And I remember clearly, first feeling this disquieting confusion, as a small child, while watching my Dad painting, and feeling puzzled, almost spooked by the images he made. And yet I do feel that without creative activity (for the sake of creative activity and reflection), that without this, Humans go more and more insane. So, art and creativity are every bit as essential to Humans as plumbing, building and engineering, but artists are engaged in playing a longer, quieter game.

Oscar Romp 
August 2025