“Celebrated for his evocation of cities and landscapes, Jake Attree makes solid the airy castles of inspiration in paintings of rare integrity and depth.”
- Andrew Lambirth
JAKE ATTREE
FROM A FIXED POINT
6 June - 25 July 2026
Thorns Gallery
PRIVATE VIEW:
Saturday 6 June 2026, 10 am - 5pm
Thorns Gallery is pleased to invite you to the opening of From a Fixed Point - a solo exhibition of paintings and drawings by Jake Attree. The exhibition brings together paintings inspired by the Yorkshire Dales, alongside works reflecting the historic city of York, where Attree was born, as well as landscapes in Northumberland and Cornwall.
Rooted in observation yet shaped by memory, Attree’s paintings move beyond direct depictions of place, forming layered, reflective compositions informed by lived experience and artistic influence.
A palette of ochres, reds, and pale greys echoes both the veined rock of the Dales and the weathered surfaces of York Minster, drawing parallels between landscape and architecture. His work reflects influences from Pieter Bruegel to Agnes Martin in its mark-making and composition.
A recurring motif is the pantile rooftops of York, where, as Attree describes, the Minster appears ‘floating on an ocean of red tiles.’ The Yorkshire Dales remain central to the exhibition, following a period of residency at Thorns Gallery that informed the sensitivity of these works.
So strong is his technique and so confident his use of colour that Attree can take a very simple subject such as a stand of trees on a bank, or figures in the street, and make it sing… Ultimately the very best artists take reference from many sources … adopting others and from this apparent melee carve out their own individual vision. Jake Attree is one of these, and a quite extraordinary one at that.
Brian Sinfield - Gallerist
As poetry is everywhere for those capable of finding it, so are subjects for paintings. Jake Attree finds both and moulds them into cool calm episodes of deep reflection: paintings which are powerhouses of thought and feeling which will continue to give out energy and inspiration long after the work of more flashy contemporaries has exhausted itself and lost all relevance.
Andrew Lambirth - Writer and art critic
By nature an autodidact, Attree’s knowledge of art’s history and of its wider cultural context is prodigious and scholarly. Consequently his list of touchstones, those artists who inspire and set the standard by which he judges his own practice, is long and surprisingly diverse.
Lynne Green - Curator, editor and writer
Studio vsitors welcome by appointment only: please call 07533 110531 or email jonathanattree81@gmail.com
Attree at work in his Dean Clough studio
A new film by Matt Howarth
In the Artist’s Studio
This film meets Attree in his Halifax studio, where he takes us on an informal tour of his 2021 exhibition. It then travels to London, where gallerist David Messum discusses his favourite works.