Arts University Bournemouth’s Associate Professor and Course Leader for MA Painting, Dominic Shepherd, unveiled his latest solo exhibition, The Hollow Hill, at Soho’s Gramercy Park Studios earlier this summer.
Opening with a private viewing on Thursday 2 July, the collection was presented by Charlie Smith London and marks a compelling evolution in Dominic’s decades-long exploration of folk culture, Romanticism, and the British psychological landscape.
After spending 25 years residing in a clearing within an ancient woodland, Dominic and his wife relocated to the earthworks of an Iron Age hill fort set high above the Dorset vales. Built directly into the ancient ramparts, their home occupies a landscape steeped in historical, sacred and literary significance.
“For 25 years, I painted from within the woods, but living on the ramparts of The Hollow Hill is entirely different," comments Dominic. "It’s a place shaped by disappearance – ancient wells, vanished hamlets, hidden waters beneath your feet. Walking these pathways isn't just about observing nature; it’s an active exchange between the mythic terrain outside and the inner landscape of memory and the unconscious.”
The featured works, including St. George’s Dragon (2026), Rain, Fire, Mud (2026), and The Crossing (2026), emerged directly from Dominic’s daily walks across the fort’s barrows, ponds, and forgotten pathways.
Rather than serving as literal topographical studies, these intimate oil-on-linen paintings represent a dialogue between the external world and the internal topography of memory, myth, and the unconscious. Through this synthesis, the landscape becomes a psychological terrain, a meditation on belonging, displacement, and the hidden currents connecting personal experience to ancient geography.
