About
Painting Britain's oldest road.
SEAN MONAGHAN · OUTDOOR PAINTER · NORTH WILTSHIRE
Sean Monaghan is an outdoor landscape painter based in North Wiltshire. For the last decade he has painted the Ridgeway, an ancient chalk track known as Britain's oldest road. Now the best of that work is available to own as premium, archival quality open and limited edition prints: The Ridgeway Collection.
On process
Every painting happens outdoors, in front of the subject. The work is fast — it has to be. The light and weather on the Ridgeway are fickle and ever-changing.
Most pieces are dashed in rapidly on the spot in under an hour. Others are brought back to the studio for a final resolve, but the essential decisions are made outside, quickly, in front of the thing itself.
The essential decisions are made outside, quickly, in front of the thing itself.
On medium
Oils
Built up in confident strokes in front of the subject. The slower medium for the days the light holds still just long enough.
Watercolours
For the days when the weather won't sit still and only a wash can catch the atmosphere before it shifts. Speed is not a compromise — it is the point.
Speed is not a compromise — it is the point.
The Ridgeway Collection
A Note on the Ridgeway
The Ridgeway is known as Britain's oldest road — a chalk ridge used for at least five thousand years by traders, drovers and soldiers. Part of an ancient network of chalk downland that once connected Dorset and Norfolk, it runs nearly 90 miles through Wiltshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.
The North Wiltshire stretch of the Ridgeway features neolithic burial mounds, Bronze Age chalk figures and Iron Age hillforts — Avebury, Hackpen Hill, Barbury Castle, Liddington Castle, Wayland Smithy, the Uffington White Horse.
The best of that work is now available to own as premium, archival quality open and limited edition prints: The Ridgeway Collection.
Sean paints the Ridgeway because it is what he sees every day. The landscape provides an anchor — to home, history and the painting. Hillforts such as Liddington and Barbury Castle are recurring motifs in this series. They root the painting in place and time — somewhere people have looked at and stood on for thousands of years.
For the last ten years Sean has painted this stretch of the Ridgeway in every season and all weathers. The best of that work is now available to own as premium, archival quality open and limited edition prints: The Ridgeway Collection. The work in this collection includes paintings shown at exhibitions in Bath, Oxford and Swindon — and a prizewinning piece which led to mentoring by
'I paint the Ridgeway the way people who love it feel it — an impression rooted in a specific moment of light and weather, anchored to home, history, and the long view across the downs.'
THE PRINTS
Painted fast. Printed to last.
Every print is reproduced from the original work on premium archival paper. They might be painted fast, but they are printed to last.
Open Editions
Pigment inks printed on sustainable, archival cotton-rag paper. No edition limit. The accessible way to collect.
Limited Editions
Editions of 25 printed on premium Hahnemühle paper. Hand-signed and numbered. Certificate of Authenticity. The collector's choice.