The six landscapes that form of the core of this exhibition were painted from memory. I tried to execute them ‘en plein air’ but it was the gorse season – no sooner was my easel erected than I fell prey to a severe asthma attack. After several puffs of Ventolin I gathered up all my paraphernalia, shoved it into the back of my Landrover and returned to the sterile safety of my own home, where I finished them off. My original idea was to follow the Monet concept and paint the vista at a given time (so the light, shadows etc. are time specific) – but I would be dead by now. So I gave myself a time limit of 90 minutes to complete the six indoors. I’m not a lover of landscape paintings – these images are a reaction to the environment, physical and visual.

In truth I would be happier if Exmoor was concreted over and turned into an out of town shopping complex – I would get more pleasure from the space if it was.