Working at Artizan studios in Gloucestershire, Simonsen recalled sketches he’d done late in August whilst lying in a clearing in the forest near to where he grew up in Denmark. The different plants and elements are given a lot of freedom and the pictorial space is full of meandering tendrils and branches that deepen the perspective in the image. The pale green leaves seem to grow outwards towards the viewer which gives us the impression of a fertile forest, abundant and full of life as it is during the most temperate seasons.

Simonsen's fascination for flora and fauna is attributed to his Scandinavian roots due to the region’s long standing tradition for art, design and architecture inspired by natural forms. He is also inspired by elements of the French 'Rococo' style, especially its lack of structure, and the way it embraced the bizarre and beautiful, opulently celebrating the organic and the sensuous.

In the studio, the way Henrik Simonsen works is as organic as it is when he’s sketching in the outdoors; he doesn’t start with a preconceived image that he then tries to replicate, but instead builds the picture as it develops, adding and removing parts as he goes along and the process with Untamed was no exception. Indeed the original sketches were lost so the final image became more about the sensory memory of the scene itself than the recreation of the drawings.

The rich and intense palette of this piece combined with its satisfyingly full composition showing successive layers of plants full of life around each other, emanates exactly what the artist intended, resulting in an uplifting print that signifies the final flourish of summer and its perfect light; a stunning work to round off of an exceptional year for Simonsen which also saw the release of the successful print edition Blue Butterflies in the Spring.

Untamed is an edition of 65 and is available at £925.00. You can find the print edition and other available works by Henrik Simonsen on his artist’s page, here.