Solstice Meadow - Sally Stafford

Meadow Time marks a personal and creative milestone: twenty years as a full-time professional artist. Although I’ve been painting for much longer, it was here in Malmesbury where I first committed fully to a professional artistic life. To return now, two decades later, with this exhibition is both a celebration and a homecoming.

This small collection brings together paintings inspired by the changing light and quiet richness of Malmesbury's meadowlands. All are connected by an enduring fascination with landscape, memory, and the rhythm of natural cycles.

Though I spent several years living and working abroad, it has been deeply meaningful to return to the places I love —especially the meadows around Malmesbury. These fields, with their subtle shifts of colour, scent, and season, continue to offer me a sense of stillness, presence, and creative renewal.

Timed to coincide with National Meadows Day, Meadow Time honours the wild and sacred nature of these spaces. Meadows hold quiet wisdom: they teach us about growth, letting go, returning. As a painter, I try to mirror that cycle—through layering, scraping back, noticing light beneath the surface.

This exhibition is also a thank you—to the people of Malmesbury who first believed in me, supported my early work, and gave me the confidence to build a life as a full-time artist. Your encouragement helped take my paintings out into the world, and it means a great deal to return with this new body of work. I hope you enjoy these latest paintings—and if you happen to have one of my earlier pieces, I’d love to hear from you through the gallery. It would be wonderful to know where those early works have found their home.