Stand before Alan’s beautiful canvases and you can hear the sounds of summer - buzzing bees, fluttering leaves, humming lawnmowers and tennis balls being volleyed. He once again brings us his trademark combination of floral magnificence, geometry and just a smidgeon of disquiet. Everything is lovely in the garden most of the time. But then the moon comes out, and you can just make out an enigmatic figure with her back turned...

For all their loveliness, his are skilfully arranged and very stylised compositions. He carefully includes ‘topiarised’ hedges that couldn’t be more ‘unnatural’. Though one could never define Alan as a surrealist, they do recall some of the stranger work of Paul Nash – and remind us that he is part of a long English ruralist tradition. For all their ambiguity, these are still sumptuous paintings that reveal Alan’s nostalgic vision of England and her gardens.

Alan is based in Worcestershire, studied art in London at Hornsey Art Colleges, and later became a freelance artist and illustrator for advertising agencies, magazines and books. He feels his choice of career was pre-destined. “Art chose me from an early age,” he says. ”I had a passion for drawing and painting as a young child, and I’ve had tunnel vision ever since”.