Mythical worlds collide with war and the collapse of biodiversity in the London-based artist's latest show

The elegant body of work that makes up Noah’s Woods – Stories of Cultural Memory and the Natural World needs to be seen up close to be truly appreciated. Comprising 13 paintings made between 2023 and 2025 – many under the umbrella title of Trust and Betrayal – these pieces are sensory, with iridescent surfaces that at times glint in the light, and bold, shimmering colour contrasts. However, while the paintings are heavily worked and textured, creating abstract spaces through gesture, hue and shape, the thin layers of paint are juxtaposed by images of people that have been transferred from photographs taken by Katy Sayers Green herself. Other figurative aspects, such as the depiction of lions in the triptych The Falcon Cannot Hear the Falconer, are expressed through sweeping gestures in paint. The inclusion of both abstract and figurative elements gives a contemporary feel to what are some beautiful works to be contemplated and enjoyed.

*Noah's Woods by Katy Sayers Green, acrylic and digital on wood panels © Michal Lelanthal*

Beyond the surface are the important narratives behind the paintings. The titles are vivid and help the viewer to situate themselves in relation to these abstracted environments. Incorporated into the marks and colour are ideas taken from specific sources, ranging from modern poems to Greek mythology to Jewish scriptures, as a way of building imagined landscapes. Sometimes these are drawn from the study of real places, such as the diptych Noah’s Woods Ebb and Noah’s Woods Flow, which was developed during a residency at GroundWork Gallery in Norfolk, near The Wash. The London-based artist spent time on the coast studying the swash zone – the point where the sea meets the land after a wave has broken – and discovered that the peat beds uncovered at low tide were constituted from an ancient woodland, known to locals as Noah’s Woods. Considering the many tales of floods from around the world, the title makes clear reference to the ways in which climate change relates to the cultural imagination.

*Trust and Betrayal by Katy Sayers Green, oil and acrylic on canvas © Michal Lelanthal*

This thread of natural destruction is interwoven with the devastation and trauma of 7 October, offering a further, metaphorical, layering. The Falcon…, for example, aims to convey a sense of doom and the artist's feelings about the war in the Middle East. The series was named from an excerpt of the poem The Second Coming by WB Yeats, which he wrote after World War I and the flu epidemic of the time, both of which devastated whole communities. The title of the poem, which is usually a Christian reference to the return of Christ to save the world from the final battle of destruction, can be seen instead as a powerful evocation of the dark times we all seem to be in presently.

It may take some time to decipher all the details within Noah's Woods as a whole, but a slow observing will more than reward the viewer who takes the time to do so.

By Rachel Garfield

Katy Sayers Green: Noah’s Woods – Stories of Cultural Memory and the Natural World runs until Friday 20 February. Felstead Art @ 60 Threadneedle Street, London, EC2R 8HP. felsteadart.com