Jack Frame is a contemporary British artist renowned for his distinctive paintings of trees, from delicate blossom in full bloom to the quiet strength and character of ancient oaks.
Working primarily with oils and acrylics over luminous metal leaf, Jack places his subjects within simple, elemental spaces, allowing the shape, balance and individuality of each tree to take centre stage. His paintings explore the relationship between nature, colour and surface, creating works that shift subtly as the light around them changes.
Born in Kent and a graduate of Glasgow School of Art, Jack has developed an international following for his highly recognisable approach to landscape painting. Now dividing his time between rural Norfolk and Glasgow, he continues to find inspiration in the natural world and the timeless forms and patterns found within it.
NATURE | LIGHT | CRAFT
Portraits of Trees
Jack Frame doesn't simply paint landscapes. He isolates individual trees from their surroundings and gives them the attention normally reserved for a portrait.
Working en plein air allows Jack to spend time directly with his subjects, observing their proportions, changing colour and the subtle relationship between a tree and the space around it. Each painting becomes a record of a particular encounter with the landscape rather than simply an interpretation created later in the studio.
For Jack, that act of observation is important. Painting, he explains, allows him “to be present, to be a part of the world.”
Blossom, ancient oaks and delicate branching forms recur throughout his work, but each is treated individually. By removing unnecessary detail and placing the tree within a simple, often luminous space, its structure becomes the focus — the spread of the branches, the balance of the canopy and the natural patterns created over years of growth.
From Nature to Metal Leaf
The apparent simplicity of Jack's compositions disguises a remarkably tactile approach to making them.
Oils and acrylics are applied over metal leaf, introducing a reflective quality that allows the surface to respond to its surroundings. As daylight changes, so too can the character of the painting, with areas of gold, silver and colour becoming more or less prominent.
Jack also draws on traditional artisan techniques including gilding, enamelling and marbling. His influences reach from Bosch and Constable to medieval art and Japanese screen printing, while the luminous surfaces of Chinese and Japanese silk painting can also be felt in his approach to colour and finish.
The result is an intriguing balance between something entirely natural and something deliberately crafted: the organic structure of a tree set against a surface built through layers of paint, metal and light.
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