Rupert Aker Exhibition - Cider with Rosie

Taking inspiration from and celebrating 50 years since the publication of Laurie Lee's Cider with Rosie, artist Rupert Aker has brought together a stunning collection of paintings.

Rupert, who lives in a cottage above Slad Valley - famously also the home of Laurie Lee - first read the book at school, growing up in Devon.

Using mainly palette knife and oils, as he feels 'it becomes much more immediate', he captures the scenes as they are now, including modern-day tractors in place of the bucolic scenes of mowing in Laurie Lee's book.

"I work quite quickly," he says. "If I get a burst of enthusiasm, I try to get it down as soon as possible.

"I'm trying to capture the rural simplicity as it is now; the intensity of the greens and the rough, white tracks of the Valley."

After growing up in Devon, he moved to Gloucestershire to do a degree at the Royal Agricultural College. He then became a woodland manager and moved to Slad, which felt, to him, like coming home.

"I love the way the landscape and architecture fit so well together in the Cotswolds," he says. "What I'd really like to do some time is walk the Cotswold Way, capturing the landscape as I travel and selling the 'wet paintings' on the same day."

Forthcoming exhibitions:

June 6-7, 10.30am-5pmThe Town Hall, Victoria Square, Painswick, Gloucestershire

August 12-18, 10am-5.30pmThe Gardens Gallery, Montpellier Gardens, Cheltenham