Eric Butcher – Artist News

I live in quite an isolated spot, a clearing in extensive woodland in the Chiltern Hills about 35 miles West of London. In spite of being so close to London it feels a million miles away. The studio is next to the house in a converted barn and we are surrounded by nature. Compared to some of the lockdown horror stories I hear I’m almost embarrassed at how little it has materially affected me. It makes me realise that I have in some respects been in a sort of self-imposed lockdown for years. In spite of my wife working from home and children home schooling, I can work more or less as normal. In fact ironically I’m probably seeing more of people than I would normally, albeit from a much reduced pool. Perhaps because the facts of my life haven’t changed much I find it surprising how ill at ease I feel, how anxious I am about the sort of world I will find when I venture beyond the confines of my clearing. To some extent the pandemic seems to have crystallised a whole slew of fears about the world which had been bubbling up for years; global warming and goodness knows how many other worries about the environment, troubling shifts in geo-politics, the rise of populism, the depressing self-serving cynicism of some of the world’s most powerful ‘leaders’. I am filled with a foreboding about the future of our species.