"Footsteps on Kinder" is Paul Goodrick's visual interpretation of the Kinder Scout peat and gritstone plateau in the Derbyshire Peak District. It is a place of many events and contrasts - magical, mysterious and strangely beautiful. Based on visits over more than a decade as a hiker, a camper and an artist, Paul has explored and researched the area and has produced paintings, drawings, photographs and sculpture that highlight fragments, places and issues associated with Kinder. Many of his works have been created on the plateau itself, wind, rain and snow affecting the mood and appearance his work.

A theme of Paul's approach to art is the relationship between the urban and the natural environments and on Kinder Scout there are many examples of the intervention of man from the surrounding towns and cities which highlight this relationship and the conflicts that often result from it. Perhaps the most significant of these relates to the right to roam freely over such areas - "No man has the right to own mountains", sang Ewan MacColl about Kinder. The most memorable event is caught in the story of Benny Rothman, and his dream to hike where he wanted. In 1932 he led a mass trespass onto Kinder and Rothman's action became a landmark in the ramblers campaign, but at the time resulted in a fight with the authorities not far from one of the strange gritstone outcrops, appropriately called "The Boxing Gloves Rocks". Paul's repeated visits to these stones has led him to create more than 100 paintings, sculptures and photographs, most of them linking the real to Rothman's ideal.

This small sample of the artwork that he has created during his walks on Kinder Scout moor has, he says, drawn him into the process, into the narrative, and into his own dreams and experiences about the place.

This exhibition is sponsored by the Arts Council (England) and Derbyshire County Council.

Paul Goodrick is an environmental artist and sculptor, born and brought up in Scarborough, now based in Maidstone.

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