An exhibition of John Caple's paintings in the Winch Gallery at Snape Maltings.

John Caple’s family have been land workers in Mendip since the eighteenth century. He grew up in a close-knit, rural community in which family stories and folk traditions were passed down through successive generations and which were to become the inspiration for his earliest paintings.

Twenty-five years on, John Caple’s art remains woven into the landscape and history of Somerset as well as the rich tradition of poetry, folklore and magic that has held firm in Mendip. These are paintings built on the collective memory of generations who shared a profound connection to the natural world. It was their voice which resonates through the poetry of Coleridge (who lived on the Quantock Hills), Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats and Emily Dickinson, and it was in their poetry that John Caple also found another path into the landscape.

Many of the paintings in this exhibition are inspired by Shelley’s lyrical meditation, The Woodman and the Nightingale, a poem that explores the delicate dialogue between human presence and the enduring voice of nature. In Shelley’s work, the woodman listens as the nightingale sings, hearing a spirit of the wild that speaks to beauty beyond utility. Guided by the bird, the artist leads us on a visual journey through forests, waterways, and hidden villages, places that still echo with natural memory. The ever-present woodman stands watch, not only as a guardian but also as a witness to the fragility of what remains. Like Shelley’s poem, these works express both awe and urgency, a call to recognize and protect the poetic soul of the wild.

Presented by John Martin Gallery