A Confluence of Elements alludes to the materiality and movements of place. The exhibition centres on a specific location in the Kentish countryside: a small hamlet in the parish of Newenden named Lossenham.

Russell’s work at Lossenham has explored a variety of mediums, starting with photography and writing, and progressing to field recordings, musical compositions, ceramics, and cameraless image-making. The film ‘Uncertain Boundaries’, created with Kit Warren during his residency, encompasses many of these aspects. However, the primary focus of his work shown at Rye Gallery delves into his process of foraging and isolating mineral colours from the landscape, alongside rare fossil-bearing stones gathered from Lossenham’s fields and honed into votive pieces; site-specific responses that utilise the very materials of the landscape.

Russell’s foraged mineral pigments were worked into paints and inks by Melvyn and they sourced wood which Melvyn used to fashion a violin bow, and play tonal passages that were in turn layered into a musical piece composed by Russell. Their combined work for A Confluence of Elements features a subtly shared visual language that alludes to both Carmelite and earlier human presence in the Lossenham landscape.

“I have been exploring the materiality and the sense of place in the Lossenham landscape. For me, it has been a place of hidden diversity, hidden in the sense that the simplicity of the environment that one initially encounters belies the profusion of detail that unfolds through closer observation. I could cite the wide range of pigment colours to be discovered in the clays, minerals, and iron oxides, the unexpected tapestry of sub-surface sounds within the ponds, and Lossenham can be such a visceral and intimate retreat, a place of seclusion and quietude that affords both time and space to contemplate one’s inner landscape and, over time, a sense of emptying out has naturally happened.”

The Lossenham minerals and clays, prospected and worked into an array of coloured pigments by Russell, have afforded Melvyn a vocabulary unique to the land. Colours ground fine, mixed with oil to produce paints and inks, the soul of place applied to canvas and board. Melvyn transmutes forms contained within his paintings and develops them into sculptural forms. The sculptures are carved from a natural resin plaster containing foraged Lossenham pigments, or from found wood on the landscape.

“The experience of working at Lossenham has been wonderful, the freedom to explore layers of geology and history, to handle foraged minerals and clays, and the opportunity to wander along new creative paths. The peace of the Lossenham landscape allows for inner contemplation; sensations within can take precedence over a figurative portrayal of nature. The notion arises that an accumulated history has an energy, a stored charge within the deposits of soil, sands, clays, and iron; part of the materiality of each pigment foraged from the ground is different, and therefore each pigment influences and guides the form of the resulting painting.”

Melvyn’s painting and sculptural motifs and forms are inspired by the presence of the Carmelite Priory at Lossenham, the land as a meditative and contemplative place, the ancient concept of votive pools as sites of offering or portals to another realm.

Towards the end of 2025, Terry Hulf, a long-standing friend of the late Fay Godwin, was invited to capture large-format photographs of Lossenham.  Some of his winter and early spring images from many early morning visits have been included in the exhibition; his strict, self-imposed rules of engagement offer a wonderfully raw and unfiltered representation of place as his eye finds it.