Paintings of the Heath ponds and swimmers are on show on the walls of a South End Green wine bar.
Bloom and Bliss is the "capsule collection" by artist and philosophy academic Vanessa Brassey, who started painting professionally during lockdown.
When she posted sketchbook paintings of her daily walks on the Heath on Instagram, people asked if they were for sale. Before that, her sketchbooks were "a private sanctuary," but the interest encouraged Brassey to sell her works.
They are now exhibited at MUST in South End Road until January 11 with prices ranging from £150 to £1500. Many paintings are drawn from her experience of the Heath in lockdown; capturing sun on a landscape, a heron at daybreak, ducks ignoring swimmers, and the evening colours of puple and pink "streaking through the trees."
She writes that during lockdown "our world became local and highly sensitised, which opened our eyes to an old preciousness. Amidst the quietness we helped each other toward a new bloom and bliss".
"Experiences of euphoria, a tale of camaraderie, joy, health and wellbeing. Dizzy boisterousness at the Men’s Pond, solitude and sanctuary at the Ladies Pond, calm moments at the Mixed Pond. The chaotic thrill of Parliament Hill Lido; those queues for coffee."
Brassey's work has been shortlisted for the Royal Institute of Watercolour Painters, The Holly Bush Emerging Women Painters Prize, and the Jackson Painting Prize, and selected for the Beep! Biannual Painting Prize.
She continues to teach philosphy at King's College London and runs collaborations with the Tate, National Gallery and The Photographer's Gallery, introducing philosophical puzzles in "digestible and delightful formats".
"My research investigates emotions, memory, and dreaming – an area ripe with open puzzles for the scientific community," she said. "They occupy me when I am reading and writing, but also when I am looking and painting. My paintings mirror my experience of the world. I blend direct observation with photographic evidence and a bright palette. I want to convey how it feels to be endlessly beguiled and moved by the complexity and possibilities of our shared planet by capturing those transient feelings that make up the quicksilver of our lives."
Must wine bar is at 63 South End Road, Hampstead. https://mustwine.co.uk/ Brassey sells greetings cards at https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/VanessaBrasseyArt
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