The rich autumnal colours of the trees and shrubs in this work reveal the season in which it was painted. The rich russet tones of the plants contrast with the gentle blue of the path that snakes around a bend. Adrian Berg gives the scene a sense of movement through his rhythmic use of shape and line. Our eye is led along the path to imagine what lies behind the bushes. Berg lived and worked at 8 Gloucester Gate, overlooking Regent’s Park, between 1961 and 1985. During those years the park became a subject of persistent scrutiny and he created a body of work that captured the shifting colours and textures associated with seasonal change.
During the early 1980s Berg carried out numerous experiments with spatial conventions. He frequently stretched his images so that they contained far more than could possibly have been seen from a single viewpoint. Testing his ideas in watercolour before working in oil on large scale canvases, Berg managed to retain a sense of spontaneity and movement, despite the elaborate compositional construction of his paintings.
