A COLLECTION of paintings are being showcased at Fisherton Mill in Salisbury.

Artist Ray Walker retired from working as a manager in further education colleges in 2022 and set about creating small-scale paintings, something he first worked on in his late 20s.

The paintings are inspired by nature, ceramics, and the use of colour.

The work is informed by imagery from medieval manuscripts, Japanese art, Indian miniatures, and early 20th century modernist painting.

A simple still-life format is used to express themes and ideas.

Within the paintings objects are painted in egg tempera where raw pigment is mixed with egg yolk – a technique used in Europe up until the early Renaissance when this method was replaced by oil painting.

Egg tempera allows for thin transparent layers of colour to be built up so colours can glow through each other.

The backgrounds are painted in gouache, a technique where pigments are mixed with gum Arabic, enabling flat opaque blocks of colour to be applied to the surface.

All the paintings are presented in hand-painted box frames.