Rain Forest with Tropical Birds

100 × 100 cm · acrylic, collage and print on deep-edge canvas · unframed, sides painted, ready to hang

I’ve visited several Caribbean islands, but, for me, none compares to the authenticity of Tobago. It is simply dripping in greenery. Its Main Ridge rainforest is the oldest protected rainforest in the Western Hemisphere, and it totally absorbed me.

This painting almost painted itself when I got home. The experience was so vivid that the marks came naturally. Leaf forms in teal, sage, rust and gold are layered one over another. Tropical birds, collaged into the leaves, sit half-hidden in the canopy, while light filters down through the greens against a backdrop of tropical sky.

Acrylic, collage and print build a surface as rich and complex as the forest itself. The longer you look, the more you find.

It has the energy of a place that is always growing and always moving, yet there is a deep calm at its heart. It changes with the light and rewards every glance. This is a joyous painting to live with. At a metre square, it’s a bold statement piece for a living room, garden room or hallway. Hang it where you’ll pass it every day for a burst of the tropics, and a reminder that the natural world is endlessly, extravagantly beautiful.

The deep-edge canvas has painted sides, so it looks finished and contemporary without a frame.

This is an original, one-of-a-kind painting by Cornwall artist Rachel Jeffery. It’s also available as a canvas print or a fine art paper print.