Janet Boulton Paintings & paper relief works, Recent Texts

Little Sparta is set in the Pentland Hills, near Edinburgh. It was created by Ian Hamilton Finlay, in a hill farm given to him and his wife, Sue, by her parents.

Here, starting in the 1960s, the Finlays created both a garden and a space in which he developed what was to become a true poet-philosopher's garden, where his sculpture, poetry and other works of art, fused with the garden and planting to make Little Sparta a work of art in its own right.

Finlay's work deals with the themes that he saw as those underpinning the society's structure. Recurrent amongst these are: the pre-Socratic view of the nature of the world; the sea, and the boats and fishing fleets that work it; the Second World War, in particular the nautical aspects of the war; and impact of the French revolution on modern democracies.

Little Sparta is only open to the public in the summer months when the garden is able to provide the optimum context for the works of art in it.

Finlay invited the Abingdon artist Janet Boulton to work in the house and garden and referred to her as the "sometimes resident artist at Little Sparta".

Over a 16 year period, Boulton sketched, painted and drew both in the house and outbuildings, amassing a substantial body of work that remembers Little Sparta.

Her spell as resident artist at Edinburgh College of Art in the summer of 2006 gave her the opportunity to make studio-based works from the material.

And during this years Edinburgh Festival, the college of art is mounting an exhibition of 120 pieces of Bolton's work. In 2010, the exhibition will move to the International Currents Gallery, at the John David Money Foundation in Chicago.

In Boat Window II, Bolton has translated Finally's passion for the sea and boats into an exquisitely delicate water-colour. She captures the model boat, one of many that Finally made, against a backdrop of clear light that accentuate the boat's own colours and lines.

Torso reflects Bolton's ability to use a wide range of media in order to capture the spirit and essence of what makes up Little Sparta. By using moulded paper and focussing on only part of the hull of a Second Word War submarine she summarises the efficiency and economic shape of its structure and its bleak, ruthless character as it roams the seas in search of enemies and in the pursuit of defence at a time of war: something that both fascinated and horrified Finlay.

Boulton's own garden also features in the work on show. She has use it and her house much in the same way Finay used Little Sparta-as a meeting of art and the natural world. She wittily makes links between the two houses and gardens in Postcode. She has cast in bronze the postcode for Little Sparta, and it stands full square in her Abingdon garden, where its clean lines superimpose it on the complex planting behind it.

Poesie, also in Boulton's own garden, is integral to her planting scheme.Here the formal frame of a square granite plinth is superimposed with a transparent glass square which provides a structured, disciplined shape that works well with the fluid movement of the vegetation beyond it and also provides a focus that would not otherwise exist on to the delicate flowers of a clematis.