In a country long shaped by the pastoral ideal, artist Rebecca Howard has spent two years asking what ecological restoration truly looks like — and found an answer that unsettles centuries of English aesthetic convention. Her nine large canvases, born from visits to rewilding sites across England, place beaver-gnawed trees, fungal deadwood, and brown beaver pools at the center of a visual argument: that recovery, not tidiness, is the deeper form of beauty. Opening at Knepp estate in West Sussex on September 12, the exhibition arrives at a moment when the cultural imagination may need to catch
Artist finds beauty in rewilding's 'mess': dead trees, beavers and new life
Beauty in the stasis between living and dead
Mark
Why does it matter that an artist spent two years painting rewilding sites? Isn't the ecological work itself enough?
Mimi
The ecological work is happening, yes, but most people never see it. They see headlines or statistics. Howard's paintings put you inside the experience—you're standing in front of a canvas that's taller than you are, looking at a beaver-gnawed tree or a flooded field. That changes something in how you understand what rewilding actually is.
Luke
But does the exhibition change behavior? Do people walk out wanting to rewild their own land, or do they just appreciate the aesthetic and move on?
Mimi
That's the honest question. Howard says she wants people to feel empowered, not overwhelmed. Whether nine paintings in a gallery actually shift land management decisions is something we won't know for months or years.
Mark
The sites she visited—Knepp, Derek Gow's projects, the Derby urban site—are these representative of rewilding across Britain, or are they the showcase examples?
Mimi
They're all members of Rewilding Britain's network, so they're part of an organized movement. But Howard deliberately chose varied habitats and included less famous sites like Broughton Sanctuary alongside the famous ones. She wasn't just painting the obvious choices.
Luke
How long has each site actually been rewilding? Because "five years" is very different from "twenty years" in terms of what you can claim about recovery.
Mimi
That's what Howard observed—some sites had only been doing it for five years and already there was visible change. Species returning, the landscape shifting. But you're right that five years is early. We don't know the long-term trajectory yet.
Mark
What does "rewilding" actually mean at each of these sites? Is it the same thing everywhere?
Mimi
No. At some sites it's stepping back and letting nature lead. At others, like Moor Barton, it's active intervention—ring-barking non-native trees to make space for native species. Rewilding isn't passive. It's a different kind of management.
Luke
And the deadwood that Howard painted—is that actually valuable habitat, or is it just what happens when you stop cutting things down?
Mimi
It's both. Deadwood provides habitat for hundreds of invertebrate species. But it's been removed from English landscapes for centuries, so we've lost that ecosystem. Rewilding sites are restoring it deliberately.
Mark
The exhibition runs until October 18 and is expected to tour. What's the actual reach? How many people will see this?
Luke
That's unknown. A gallery show at Knepp will reach people already interested in rewilding, probably. Whether it tours to places where people are skeptical about rewilding—that's where it would matter most, and that's still to be determined.
Il Polso
- England's rewilding movement is producing landscapes that look nothing like the countryside most people expect — and that unfamiliarity is itself a barrier to public support.
- Howard's two-year journey through sites from Cornish rainforest to urban Derby revealed a productive, unpredictable mess that traditionalists find deeply uncomfortable.
- By placing deadwood and beaver pools inside large, immersive gallery canvases, Howard is directly challenging the seascapes and bluebell woods that dominate conventional landscape art.
- Landowners and stewards she met were already seeing species return within just five years — the pace of change is visible, but the cultural framing hasn't kept up.
- The exhibition, opening at Knepp and expected to tour nationally, is positioned as cultural infrastructure for the rewilding movement — making ecological restoration feel imaginatively possible, not just scientifically necessary.
In a country long shaped by the pastoral ideal, artist Rebecca Howard has spent two years asking what ecological restoration truly looks like — and found an answer that unsettles centuries of English aesthetic convention. Her nine large canvases, born from visits to rewilding sites across England, place beaver-gnawed trees, fungal deadwood, and brown beaver pools at the center of a visual argument: that recovery, not tidiness, is the deeper form of beauty. Opening at Knepp estate in West Sussex on September 12, the exhibition arrives at a moment when the cultural imagination may need to catch up with what the land is quietly becoming.
Rebecca Howard arrived at England's rewilding sites with a sketchbook and a question: what does ecological restoration actually look like when you stand in front of it? What she found bore no resemblance to the postcard English countryside. Beaver-gnawed trees hovered between living and dead. Brown pools sat where fields had once been drained. Fungi bloomed across deadwood. It was, she recognised, the kind of productive mess that makes traditionalists deeply uneasy — and she decided to paint it.
Nine large canvases, each 120 centimetres tall, now hang in an exhibition opening September 12 at Knepp, the West Sussex estate that pioneered Britain's rewilding movement. The show runs through October 18 and is expected to tour nationally. Howard moved methodically through some of Britain's most significant rewilding sites — Cabilla's Cornish temperate rainforest, Derek Gow's Devon farm with its reintroduced beavers and storks, Derby's urban rewilding initiative, and Broughton Sanctuary in North Yorkshire, held by the same family for over 900 years and now surrendered to nature's lead.
At Hamatethy Farm in Cornwall, she encountered a beech tree nearly chewed through by beavers — still upright, still alive, visibly approaching collapse. "There was something very beautiful about that stasis between a living and a dead tree," she said. "You know it's going to crash down at some point but it's going to provide so much habitat when it does." At Knepp, she studied standing deadwood, a habitat for hundreds of invertebrate species that has been systematically cleared from English landscapes for centuries. At Moor Barton in Devon, she joined a group ring-barking non-native larch — killing trees to let oaks and birches breathe — and understood that active intervention, too, is part of rewilding.
What moved Howard across all the sites was not only the ecological change but the openness of those stewarding it. Many had been rewilding for just five years, yet species were already returning and the landscape was becoming less predictable. "There was this excitement," she recalled. "The constant unknown quality to it."
Her ambition for the exhibition is modest but pointed. "If you walk into an art gallery you're faced with seascapes or bluebell woods but you don't often see a dead tree in a painting," she said. By centring these unconventional landscapes in large, immersive work, she asks viewers to see them not as failures of management but as evidence of recovery. Knepp's creative director Lia Brazier called the show essential cultural work: "Rewilding needs to exist not only in our landscapes, but in our culture and imagination too." Howard, who owns no land herself, is clear about her role. "It's my gift to their cause," she said.
Rebecca Howard spent two years moving through England's rewilding projects with a sketchbook and a question: what does ecological restoration actually look like when you stand in front of it? The answer, she discovered, did not match the postcard version of the English countryside. There were no manicured hedgerows or tidy pastoral scenes. Instead, she found beaver-gnawed trees still standing in a state between living and dead, pools of brown water where fields had once been drained, fungi blooming on deadwood, and the kind of productive mess that makes traditionalists uncomfortable.
Her response was to paint it. Nine large canvases—each 120 centimeters tall and 70 wide—now hang in an exhibition that opens September 12 at Knepp, the West Sussex estate that pioneered Britain's rewilding movement. The show runs through October 18 and is expected to tour other venues across the country. Howard's work amounts to a visual argument: that the landscapes emerging from rewilding projects possess their own severe and particular beauty, one that challenges centuries of English aesthetic convention.
The artist began at Cabilla, a fragment of Cornish temperate rainforest being restored by the Thousand Year Trust, and moved methodically through some of Britain's most significant rewilding sites. She visited Knepp itself, the pioneering estate that catalyzed the broader movement. She spent time at Derek Gow's Devon farm, where beavers, storks, and water voles have been reintroduced across multiple projects. She traveled to Derby to see the largest urban rewilding initiative in Britain, and to Broughton Sanctuary in North Yorkshire, an estate held by the same family for more than 900 years that is now allowing nature to lead. At Hamatethy Farm in Cornwall, she encountered a beech tree whose trunk had been chewed nearly through by beavers—still upright, still alive, but visibly approaching collapse. "There was something very beautiful about that stasis between a living and a dead tree," she said. "You know it's going to crash down at some point but it's going to provide so much habitat when it does."
What struck Howard across all the sites was not just the ecological transformation but the openness of the people stewarding it. Landowners and managers—some working through private ownership, others through charitable trusts—showed her around with enthusiasm and without agenda. Many had been rewilding for only five years, yet the changes were already visible: species returning, the landscape becoming less predictable, the constant possibility of encountering something unexpected. "There was this excitement," Howard recalled. "The constant unknown quality to it, which might be a bit disconcerting to a lot of us."
At Knepp, she studied standing deadwood, a habitat for hundreds of invertebrate species but one that has been systematically removed from English landscapes for centuries—first through tidiness, more recently through health and safety concerns. At Moor Barton in Devon, she joined a group ring-barking non-native larch trees, an act that felt counterintuitive (killing trees) but served a clear purpose: removing fast-growing species that were crowding out young oaks and birches, creating deadwood in the process. These moments of active intervention, Howard understood, were part of rewilding too.
Howard's stated ambition for the exhibition is modest but pointed. She wanted to create work that would leave viewers feeling not overwhelmed by climate and biodiversity crisis but empowered. "If you walk into an art gallery you're faced with seascapes or bluebell woods but you don't often see a dead tree in a painting," she said. By placing deadwood, beaver pools, and the productive untidiness of rewilding sites at the center of large, immersive canvases, she is asking the viewer to see these landscapes not as failures of management but as evidence of recovery. Lia Brazier, creative director at Knepp, framed the exhibition as essential cultural work: "Rewilding needs to exist not only in our landscapes, but in our culture and imagination too." Howard, who owns no land herself, sees her role as raising awareness through the particular power of visual art. "It's my gift to their cause," she said.
Citazioni salienti
If you walk into an art gallery you're faced with seascapes or bluebell woods but you don't often see a dead tree in a painting.— Rebecca Howard
Rewilding needs to exist not only in our landscapes, but in our culture and imagination too.— Lia Brazier, creative director at Knepp
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Climate & Environment