RGB Blue - The Blue of Distance

RGB Blue

The Blue of Distance

Gertrude Jekyll, who never visited Hestercombe due to her failing eyesight, often worked from a distance, drawing on her deep understanding of plants and colour to imagine a space. She considered how the hills beyond a garden would shift with the light — from greys to blues and purples — and how these tones might be echoed in her planting design.

*The Blue of Distance* takes its title from Rebecca Solnit’s essay, which reflects on the sense of longing evoked by distant landscapes — the way light softens hills on the horizon, creating an idealised version of a place that always remains just out of reach. This idea came to mind on my first visit to Hestercombe, a site that holds a significant place in the history of English garden design.

However, this notion of “Englishness” is complicated by the origins of many of the plants within such gardens, which were often sourced from across the globe. The imagery Solnit describes is intertwined with histories of empire, where the distant and the exotic became commodities. Plant hunters responded to this demand, introducing new species that would be admired by visitors strolling through gardens — often shielded from the sun by parasols, avoiding the very light that sustains the plants.

My use of cyanotype references this duality: blue as both a colour of distance and longing, and as a response to ultraviolet light itself.

I have chosen to work with blue-flowering plants referenced in Jekyll’s original planting plans. The maps included date from the early 1900s, when the garden was designed, and indicate the global origins of these species. The accompanying images depict both the natural habitats of the plants and contemporary photographs, many drawn from tourism sources. The plant studies themselves were photographed in the gardens this year.

Together, these elements explore themes of distance, perception, and the layered histories embedded within the landscape.

Lizzie Philps

Lizzie Philps is an artist and writer with a background in site-specific performance. Her practice often has an environmental theme; whether with international mother-artists in response to the tidal issues of Jersey for the Live Art Development Agency (2017), or in the creation of The Lesser Spotted Collectors Club, an immersive dystopian adventure about the extinction of birdlife which took over We The Curious, Bristol (2010). Lizzie’s work has been exhibited at Somerset House, Spike Island and MAC Birmingham, and her writings exploring the relationships between women and landscape have been published by Routledge and Demeter Press as well as several journals. Lizzie will be creating a series of exhibitions, walks and writings at Hestercombe in 2025-26 as part of a DYCP grant from the Arts Council.