Vital Union: Painting with Edgefield
“In his essay Cézanne’s Doubt, philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty describes Cézanne’s struggles to capture on the canvas what he saw — apples, mountains, people — as they existed in their full physical and embodied presence. Cézanne did not merely want to paint the world in its visual outward appearance — this was his gripe with the impressionists — but to convey their real “essence.” He sought to paint the world as it was encountered in the full richness of our lived experience, involv ing all the senses. According to Merleau-Ponty, Cézanne once said that a picture contains within itself even the smell of the landscape. And reflecting on a wine glass. Merleau-Ponty himself commented: “the brittleness, hardness, transparency, and crystal ring of glass all translate in a single manner of being.” [Phenomenology of Perception, 318, 319]. Something of Cézanne’s desire to grasp the world in all its sensory richness can also be found in the work of New Zealand artist Amanda Watson. But Watson takes it a step further. She does not merely transfer what she sees onto a flat canvas — she entrusts the very canvas to the world, inviting the world to inscribe itself on it.”
An excerpt from “Edged Fields: The tactile vision of Amanda Watson’s site-responsive paintings. Written by Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin, 2025. Published on this website and to be published in the artist book “Vital Union: Painting with Edgefield”, 2026
In a village in the east of England, there is a beautiful stone church. It has been there for centuries, it carries memories and makes new ones and is part of the everyday lives of the people who live nearby. Generations of Amanda Watson’s maternal ancestors have been intimately and materially connected to this place. Sarah and Walter Marcon were her great-great-grandparents, Walter served as the Reverend at the church for most of his life and three generations of Marcon’s before him were the spiritual kaitiaki’s of this community. The building seems to breathe and carry remnants of the people who have gone before. Palpable familial ties weave their way through the architecture, her great-great grandparents laid to rest in the ground outside, still alive in the stories of the people Amanda met while painting in a site-responsive way for a month.
Can a place provide spiritual encounters for people to experience through painting? During the 2024 residency, Amanda developed a body of paintings in collaboration with the place, working with architectural features both inside and outside the building to explore this question. On rainy days she worked inside the church, rolling back the pews to manage the large expanses of canvas within stone arches and wooden panels. There was an ambience that filled the space and she often paused to reflect on this and then to reposition the canvases. When the sun was out she worked outside against the flintstone walls and stained-glass windows. Each morning before beginning work she would be still and sing and pray in the space. These were wonderful times where she sensed a welcoming to begin work for the day.
“I began this morning in prayer on the window ledge again, offering this time as an invitation. The canvas had dried overnight, and so I laid it out on the floor. It was too large to fit, so I laid it over the rows of pews. Never quite seeing the whole painting at once, I needed to take it in by moving along it. It was a new way of looking at a painting —horizontally, in snippets, moving between the rows and bumping into the painting, squashing it down to see another place a bit further away.” [Amanda’s journal entry excerpt from the artist book Vital Union, 2026].
Residency
6-29 September 2024
St Peters & St Pauls Edgefield, Sweetbriar Lane, Melton Constable, United Kingdom
Installation
Vital Union: Painting with Edgefield
27th - 28th September 2024
St Peters & St Pauls Edgefield, Sweetbriar Lane, Melton Constable, United Kingdom.
Essays
Amanda Watson: Co-created Art with the Natural Environment. Written by Mary Modeen, published on https://www.amandawatson.com/about May 30th, 2026. To be published in hard copy in “Vital Union: Painting with Edgefield”, 2026.
Edged Fields: The tactile vision of Amanda Watson’s site-responsive paintings. Written by Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin, published on https://www.amandawatson.com May 30th, 2026. To be published in hard copy in “Vital Union: Painting with Edgefield”, 2026.
Vital Union: Painting with Spaces and Places. Cerys Dallaway Davidson. Essay published in the exhibition catalogue “Vital Union”, 2025.
Acknowledgements - I am truly grateful to have experienced the generous hospitality of the community in Egdefield and St Peters & St Pauls, and to hear the stories that have weaved their way through our lives. I would like to extend my warm thanks for the support of Reverend David Longe, Richard Peaver, Kay and Kevin (my ‘painting assistants’) and the St Peter’s & St Paul’s Church Parish Committee, Helen and Tom for their warm and generous hospitality, and the local community on my journey of painting in Edgefield during. Thanks also to friends and family and for the support of the Waikato Institute of Technology; Caleb at ITIA/St Andrews University; Mary at DJCAD/University of Dundee; Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts Gallery, Murray Rae at the University of Otago, and the Journal of Visual Arts Practice, for your wider support of me and this work. Thanks also to Mark Purdom for the installation photography.
Events - Opening Blessing, 8th September 2024; Painting Residency at St Peter’s & St Paul’s Church in Edgefield, Sweetbriar Ln, Melton Constable NR24 2AF, UK; Exhibition: ‘Vital Union: Painting with Edgefield’, Saturday 28th September 2024, St Peter’s & St Paul’s; Research Presentation: ‘Vital Union: Seeing the Real in Site-responsive Painting’, ITIA Research Seminar, School of Divinity, St Andrews University, 12.00pm, 4th October 2024; Research Seminar: Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design [DJCAD], University of Dundee, Scotland, 8th October 2024; Research Presentation: ‘Vital Union: Seeing the Real in Site-responsive Painting’, panel speaker, Art Association of Australia and New Zealand. Australian National University, Canberra. 4th December2024; Research Presentation: ‘Vital Union: Seeing the Real in Site-responsive Painting’, Edinburgh College of Art's, Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA), ‘PROKALO’ Lecture Series, 10th April 2025; Presentation & Workshop: ‘Vital Union: Seeing the Real in Site-responsive Painting’, Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Art Educators National Conference, April 15th 2025; Artist Publication Book Launch, 21st November 2025; Lecture, Art & Theology Winter Programme, University of Otago, 21st July 2025. “Vital Union: Painting with Spaces and Places”, curated by Cerys Dallaway Davidson, 21st November 2025 - 27th February 2026, Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts, The University of Waikato, Hamilton, Aotearoa New Zealand. Exhibition Catalogue: “Vital Union: Painting with Spaces and Places”. Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts, The University of Waikato, New Zealand (2025).
Images
1. An Ink-soaked Atrium’, ink on canvas, 212x143cm being installed
2. An Ink-soaked Atrium’, ink on canvas, 212x143cm being installed
3. An Ink-soaked Atrium’, ink on canvas, 212x143cm being installed
4. Emanation among illuminated walls, Ink on linen, 206x306cm [installation view]
5. Where the Shadows Fall’, 1000x180cm, ink on canvas [installation view]
6. Emanation among illuminated walls, Ink on linen, 206x306cm [being held up outside the church]