Thackeray and Browne Gallery

Directions Website Contact the museum

Thackeray and Browne Gallery We are artists, collectors and curators of original artworks and prints for inspired living spaces, beautiful homes and country houses across the UK.

19/10/2026

THE HUSHING METHODOLOGY

A Pedagogical Framework for Site-Responsive Landscape Abstraction Incorporating Fieldwork Risk Assessment & COSHH Safety Standards

Based on the Creative Methodology by Kane Cunningham

1. Conceptual Overview

Hushing is a place-generated abstract art methodology inspired by an 18th-century hydraulic mining technique used in the Yorkshire Dales and North Pennines. Historically, miners released a dam-held torrent of water down a hillside to strip away soil and expose mineral veins. In a contemporary artistic context, this process is re-engineered as a powerful educational framework. It moves students past superficial, picturesque landscape representation, transforming the canvas into a physical, auditable archive of a site's geological, ecological, and industrial history.

The Three Core Operational Phases

1. Impoundment (Research & Preparation): Deep site investigation tracking deep time (geology), socio-economic history (labour), and current ecological frameworks. This builds a mental and material 'density of intention' before mark-making begins.

2. The First Strike (Kinetic Release): A decisive, high-expenditure physical intervention on the surface. It relies on momentum, gravity, and kinetic energy rather than slow, decorative, or safety-conscious micro-composition.

3. Deposition (The Archive Aftermath): Action stops completely once the initial kinetic energy is spent. Adhering to the strict Deposition Test, the artist is forbidden from repairing or tidying up accidental paint pools, raw fractures, or sediment lines, ensuring process-honesty.

The 4-Week Curriculum Unit Layout

Designed for GCSE, A-Level, and Higher Education art programmes.

Week 1: Site Impoundment & Fieldwork Risk Assessment
Students select an isolated 10m x 10m landscape quadrant. Rather than sketching composition, they log its geological composition, historical industrial context, and safety boundaries. A mandatory Fieldwork Risk Assessment (FRA) is executed to manage solo-working risks.

Week 2: Material Sourcing & COSHH Studio Chemistry
Students harvest physical fluids and particulate matter (soil, clay, industrial silt) from their site. These raw materials are systematically processed into a custom 'River-Ground' binder. Rigorous COSHH standards are implemented to protect against waterborne pathogens, heavy metal contamination, and fine silica dust.

Week 3: The First Strike

The studio is prepared with high-containment drop cloths and splash zone protections. Students deploy their site-specific River-Ground mixtures onto heavy-gauge supports using high-energy, gravity-driven releases mimicking historical hydraulic forces. PPE (BS EN 166 Goggles) is required to mitigate splash hazards.

Week 4: Deposition Auditing & Assessment
Canvases dry naturally. Students execute a 'Deposition Audit', mapping how natural sediment fractions, rings, and crystal pools dried out. Students are evaluated on their adherence to the Deposition Test, preventing cosmetic touch-ups.

3. Site-Specific Material & Hazard Management
Environment Context, Material Sourcing & River-Ground
COSHH & Fieldwork Controls.
Heavy Mining & Hushes
(e.g., Lead, Arsenic, Iron hillsides)
Harvest raw clay, shale, and mineralized spoil sediment. Wet-mill particulates directly into a heavy gesso or acrylic medium base using site-collected river water.

• Fieldwork: Avoid hidden mine shafts, scree slopes, and unstable spoil heaps.

• COSHH: Heavy metal contamination risk. Use EN374 Nitrile Gloves. Wet-mill only or use FFP3 respirators to prevent airborne toxic dust.

Urban & Industrial Canals
(e.g., Silt, Brick dust, Waterways)
Scrape rust and collect chemical silt or weathered brick dust. Use raw canal water to thin custom acrylic washes, embedding an industrial, human-altered patina.

• Fieldwork: Mind slippery lock edges, steep concrete towpaths, and deep water risks.

• COSHH: Waterborne pathogen risk (Leptospira/Weil's disease). Strict glove use, immediate hand sanitization, and containment vectors.

Coastal & Intertidal Zones
(e.g., Estuaries, Salt marshes)
Gather estuarine silt, fine sea sands, and seawater washes. Allow salt crusts to crystallize naturally on the canvas support during the drying phase.
• Fieldwork: Strict monitoring of tide timetables and mudflat quicksands. Setup check-in curfew.
• COSHH: Micro-particulate inhalation from crushed shells. Wear masks during grinding; wash equipment thoroughly.

4. Academic Examination Marking Matrix
Aligned with standard GCSE, A-Level, and Higher Education assessment criteria.

AO1: Contextual Links & Cultural Understanding

Top Marks: The student provides an auditable, rigorous historical or geological link between their chosen site quadrant and their conceptual intents. Research notes go far beyond visual references to capture labour history or ecological dynamics.

AO2: Creative Media Experimentation & Studio Safety
Top Marks: Demonstrates absolute mastery and technical control over site-responsive material viscosity. Crucially, the student logs COSHH safety compliance (dust extraction, glove usage, and blast protection) as an integrated component of their medium logs.

AO3: Recording Insights & Analytical Observations
Top Marks: Traditional superficial landscaping photos are replaced with primary physical soil data cards, site rubbings, viscosity tests, and logged GIS/GPS parameters of the field site.

AO4: Personal, Informed & Meaningful Outcomes
Top Marks: The finished artwork is a direct, uncompromised manifestation of the physical forces at play. The student respects the Deposition Test, displaying an honest, unfixed archive of natural material behavior and kinetic energy.

https://www.kanecunningham.co.uk/hushing.pdf





13/10/2026

Hushing: Deconstructing the "Picturesque"

Historically, British landscape painting—rooted in the 18th- and 19th-century Picturesque tradition (William Gilpin, Uvedale Price)—treated the countryside as a consumer commodity.

It aestheticised rural life, turned common land into a pleasing "view", and erased the harsh realities of human labour and geological exploitation.

Hushing directly contributes to the theory of British art by painting against this tradition. It positions itself instead within the modern lineage of place-derived British abstraction (such as the mid-century St Ives school and artists like Peter Lanyon). However, it expands on them by arguing that a painting can contain a place without needing to look like it at all.

2. A Lexicon for Process: The Hydraulic Analogy

Rather than using vague or overly emotional art terms ("expressive," "intuitive"), Hushing introduces a highly specific, operational language derived from hydraulic mining and geomorphology to govern the creation of the piece.

Stage Operational Term Theoretical Meaning & Action in the Studio.

Preparation Impoundment The active gathering of local history, politics, geology, and labor narratives. This research is held like water behind a dam, building potential conceptual energy.

River-Ground The literal application of harvested site-fluids, silt, and minerals to the substrate, chemically binding the canvas to the physical location.

Ex*****on The First Strike The opening of the conceptual "sluice-gate". The single, highly physical kinetic act that initiates the release of paint.

Entrainment & Scouring The movement of fluid and paint across the canvas, where materials carry, scrape, and collide with one another purely through velocity and gravity.

Expenditure The active loss of momentum. The workflow measures success by the exhaustion of the physical force, not by time.

Outcome Deposition The final stopping point where the paint naturally settles and cures. Mark-making stops immediately.

Aftermath The unedited, raw result. It leaves exposed canvas, caught debris, and fluid overflows, completely rejecting standard rules of "tidying up" or traditional composition.

3. Potential Outcomes: Causal Presence vs. Pictorial Resemblance

The methodology offers a precise way to measure and describe what a painting achieves. In traditional landscape theory, a painting is judged on resemblance—how well it captures the look of a valley or cliff. Hushing establishes a theory of causal presence.

Because the final work is shaped directly by the physical forces of the artist's kinetic movement, the properties of collected site matter, and the internal weight of historical research, the landscape itself determines the final form.

The outcome is an authentic material record of an encounter. For the viewer, this creates what theory calls a personal Hushing—forcing them to drop their expectations of a typical, peaceful countryside painting and instead engage directly with the raw, historical, and environmental forces frozen on the canvas.

https://www.kanecunningham.co.uk/hushing.pdf

11/10/2026

Hushing explores how earned knowledge of a landscape can be carried through the process of painting, even when pictorial resemblance disappears.

That knowledge may be attributable through the artist’s
decisions and the account of making, rather than directly visible to the viewer.

The artwork expresses a place without depicting a recognisable view. For the artist, marks, colours, textures and movements carry associations with experiences and understandings of that environment.

These connections may be deliberate or intuitive, emerging from accumulated knowledge of place and deepening the artist’s emotional connection to the work.

The viewer may find no recognisable imagery through which to enter the painting, but can encounter its colour, texture, movement and emotional presence.

The work’s authenticity lies in its grounding, through the artist’s sustained relationship with the place; an account of making can give the viewer further access to that relationship and the understanding it carries.

While the painting may appear to have no identifiable subject, the landscape remains present in its shapes, colours, textures and brush marks—carried through the artist’s knowledge, feeling and decisions.

https://www.kanecunningham.co.uk/hushing.pdf

05/10/2026

Hushing Quiz:

QUESTION 1: THE METAPHOR
In Cunningham's Hushing method, what is a "sluice-gate action" during the creative process?
• A) A precise framing grid used to trace traditional perspective lines.
• B) A controlled, violent torrent of fluid medium or water that washes away, redistributes, and intentionally scars the paint layers.
• C) A mechanical device used to spray dry powder pigment onto a canvas.
• D) A glossy resin topcoat used to seal the painting when finished.

⛰️ QUESTION 2: THE MATERIALITY
How does the Hushing method treat paint layers in relation to geological time?
• A) Paint is kept strictly flat and thin to avoid any physical texture.
• B) Paint layers are applied entirely via digital printers onto acrylic gels.
• C) Paint is built up thickly to simulate geological strata, then aggressively excavated, scraped, and eroded to record physical labor.
• D) The canvas must remain a pristine, unblemished white surface.

📜 QUESTION 3: THE CRITIQUE
How does the Hushing methodology challenge the traditional 18th-century concept of the "Picturesque"?
• A) By aggressively subverting a tidy, soothing composition to expose the brutal industrial and environmental scars on the terrain.
• B) By strictly submitting to neoclassical academic drawing proportions.
• C) By refusing to depict any landscape features ever touched by humans.
• D) By transforming paintings into purely decorative abstract minimalism.

⚡ QUESTION 4: THE AFTERMATH
What happens during the final stabilization phase of a Hushing painting?
• A) The artist completely erases all previous marks to start over from scratch.
• B) The artist adds hyper-realistic foliage and wildlife to make the scene beautiful.
• C) The painting maps the residual aftermath, allowing the broken, sedimented strata to dictate a new tectonic truth.
• D) The canvas is completely submerged in oil to restore it to perfection.

⛏️ QUESTION 5: THE HISTORY
Where does the actual term "Hushing" come from?
• A) A quiet, contemplative sketching technique practiced by romantic watercolorists.
• B) An early industrial mining method where a sudden release of stored water scoured hillsides to expose lead veins.
• C) A medieval monastic ritual of painting icons in complete silence.
• D) A silent film technique used to study cloud movement over valleys.

🔑 THE ANSWER KEY (No Peeking!)

• 1: B — It mirrors the sudden release of a mining reservoir, violently disrupting the wet paint.
• 2: C — The built-up and scraped-away paint physicalizes the history of labor and land disturbance.
• 3: A — The picturesque edits out industrial exploitation; Hushing brings it to the absolute foreground.
• 4: C — The final phase honors the debris, leaving accidental pools and tears unedited.
• 5: B — It is named after the heavy hydraulic mining technique used in the uplands of Britain.
How did you score? Drop your results in the comments below! 👇



05/10/2026

Hushing : Does it offer a system for other artists to consider?

Yes. Far from being an abstract philosophy or an unstructured style, Hushing is a formalized, operational sequence. It is structured specifically as a place-generated creative methodology that any artist can adapt to their own practice. It provides actionable "thresholds" and operational tests that shift the artist’s role from a passive illustrator to an active channel of environmental forces:
• The "River-Ground" Preparation: Pre-conditioning the canvas or paper with physical elements harvested directly from the site (such as local stream water, minerals, or soil) before any paint marks are made.
• The Deposition Test: A systematic rule for evaluating the canvas during ex*****on, forcing the artist to objectively distinguish whether a proposed mark is a necessary structural release of energy or merely an aesthetic attempt to "improve the composition".
• The Aesthetic of Aftermath: A protocol that forbids the artist from polishing or "repairing" accidental pools, raw tears, or scattered debris, preservationally locking the physical event into the final artwork.

2. Does it explain the process easily?

Yes. The system is highly accessible because it relies entirely on a singular, intuitive central analogy: hydraulic engineering. By mapping the creative arc to the mechanics of an old mining dam, the workflow becomes instantly clear to non-technical audiences:
• Impoundment: Gathering data, local history, and geology acts as building up water pressure behind a dam.
• The Sluice Gate / First Strike: The physical act of beginning the painting is equated to opening the floodgates—a sudden, high-expenditure release of that stored force.
• Deposition: The painting naturally ends when the kinetic energy runs out, exactly like sediment settling after a torrent.

3. Does it add to the theory of landscape painting?

Yes. Hushing addresses a long-standing critique in contemporary art theory regarding how landscape painting historically turns common ground into a privileged, "scenic view." It contributes to the theory in three distinct ways:
• "Earned Knowledge" vs. Observation: It advances the theory of British abstraction (placing itself in dialogue with mid-century movements like St Ives and Peter Lanyon) by arguing that an abstract landscape is only valid if it manifests "earned knowledge". A painting can carry the truth of a place entirely through the actions of its making, even if all pictorial resemblance is completely gone.
• Bypassing the Picturesque: Traditional theory relies heavily on the "picturesque"—the act of framing a landscape for visual consumption.

Hushing inserts local human labor, geological time, and regional socio-political history directly into the physical matrix of the paint layer.
• New Theoretical Language: It formally codifies concepts like entrainment (the painter becoming swept into the material event rather than standing outside as a detached controller) and aesthetic aftermath into the landscape lexicon.
Ultimately, it codifies what many intuitive abstract painters have long practiced, providing a definitive language to explain why abstract landscapes can convey a deeper truth about a region than a standard, representational photograph.

https://www.kanecunningham.co.uk/hushing.pdf

04/10/2026

To take a deeper dive into Kane Cunningham's HUSHING methodology, we must look at how it transitions from a conceptual index into a physical, socio-political tool for landscape painting.

By analyzing the mechanics of his field practice, his specific use of "Grounded Theory," and the political context of the artwork, we see how the method challenges standard visual representation.

1. Grounded Theory as Creative Substance
Cunningham, who spent 35 years as an art lecturer, explicitly ties HUSHING to Grounded Theory—a research methodology systematically applied to qualitative data.

• The Concept: In standard sociology, you do not enter a study with a hypothesis; you let the data dictate the theory. In HUSHING, the artist does not enter the landscape with a pre-planned composition.

• The Practice: By embedding himself in locations like Upper Wharfedale, Cunningham gathers raw geological, environmental, and historical data. The ultimate visual output—the lines, structural imbalances, and density of color—is directly generated by the specific weight of that gathered knowledge, rather than aesthetic "rules" of landscape arrangement.

2. The Micro-Geology of Mediums
The physical ex*****on of a HUSHING piece functions almost like a literal distillation of the land. When Cunningham conditions his heavy paper using water gathered from regional becks (streams), he is introducing active mineral binders into his pigments:

• Limestone Calcium: Drawn from the karst topography of the Yorkshire Dales, the dissolved calcium reacts with the watercolor binder, subtly altering its texture and opacity.

• Millstone Grit Iron: The iron run-off from the high gritstone moors introduces actual geological rust and particulate weight into the washes.

• The Substrate: As a result, the canvas or paper is not just a surface holding an image; it becomes an actual 350-million-year-old geological extension of the valley itself.

3. The Landscape as a Contested Space
Unlike historic 19th-century landscape traditions that viewed nature as a passive, romantic escape, Cunningham uses HUSHING to frame the environment as a contested space.
• Socio-Political Strata: A HUSHING piece intentionally carries layers representing human labor—the hand-built dry stone walls, the deep scars of historic lead mining seams, and the textile heritage of the northern valleys.

• The "Anger" of the Sublime: Cunningham argues that contemporary landscape art must move beyond decorative commercial appeal to express environmental anxiety and political weight. The violent, uncontrolled nature of the First Strike and Aftermath phases reflects modern climate chaos and ecological tension rather than peaceful scenery.

4. Risking Everything in the Aftermath
The final stage of the methodology relies entirely on vulnerability and chance. Because watercolor is an unforgiving medium, working outdoors in volatile British weather means the artist is bound to lose clinical control. A sudden downpour of rain or freezing temperatures will physically fracture the paint film.

Under the rules of the HUSHING Index, these interventions by the elements are not errors to be corrected; they are the landscape actively dictating its own portrait.

https://www.kanecunningham.co.uk/hushing.pdf

03/10/2026

Geological River-Ground: The Chemistry of Absorption: The Alkaline Sponge. Traditional watercolor paper is manufactured to be completely pH-neutral (acid-free) to ensure predictable, uniform absorption.

• The Interruption: When you submerge the paper in the Wharfe, the dissolved calcium carbonate from the limestone alters the paper’s pH, making it highly alkaline.

• The Result: This alkalinity acts as a chemical brake. Instead of the paint sinking smoothly and deeply into the cotton fibers, the alkaline limestone layer instantly pulls moisture out of the wash. The pigment particles are forced to settle rapidly on the absolute surface of the sheet, freezing the stroke before the water has a chance to flow or bleed naturally.

2. The Physics of Friction: The Microscopic Grinding Stone
Limestone is highly crystalline, composed of the compressed skeletons of 350-million-year-old marine organisms. When it forms a dried crust across the valleys of your Rough paper, it creates an incredibly abrasive, microscopic topography..

• The Breakup: When you hit the surface "straight in," the brush bristles are literally ground against this mineral grit.
• The Result: The paint cannot be dragged in a fluid, continuous line. The friction fractures the brush mark—shearing the pigment off unevenly, creating jagged "dry-brush" edges, and trapping heavy color deposits in the microscopic craters of the stone.

3. The 350-Million-Year Time Perspective
By utilizing this limestone crust, the final physical object achieves a double timeline. You are executing a split-second human gesture (the First Strike) directly onto a surface that is chemically reacting with a tropical ocean bed from 350,000,000 years ago. The painting isn't just an image of Wharfedale; it is a structural, chemical byproduct of the valley's deep geological history.

This means that in Upper Wharfedale, the landscape isn't just giving you a color palette—it is physically fighting your brush and dictating the exact friction of your ex*****on.

https://www.kanecunningham.co.uk/hushing.pdf

03/10/2026

THE HUSHING FRAMEWORK:
A Critique of the Unearned Image in Contemporary Abstraction by Kane Cunningham

The Crisis of Decorative Abstraction:

A profound structural crisis plagues contemporary abstract painting. What was once pioneered as a rigorous
system of emotional and conceptual distillation has devolved into a hollow vocabulary of decoration.

Across modern galleries and digital platforms, we witness an over-reliance on a safe, familiar language: squares,
circles, grids, and generic gestural splashes. These visual devices have been stripped of their origin, intention,
and philosophical weight. They have become tropes.

Because these primary geometries and fluid strokes carry inherent structural or mathematical harmony, they
easily achieve a surface level of aesthetic appeal. They successfully simulate 'energy' and 'profundity.' Yet,
beneath this cosmetic layer, nothing underpins the work. It demands nothing of the painter, offers nothing
substantial to the viewer, and remains entirely shallow. These are unearned images.

The Anatomy of the Unearned Image:

An unearned image occurs when the formal vocabulary of abstraction is treated as a collection of nouns to be
arranged, rather than the inevitable consequence of a deeply internalised process. When the pioneers of
abstraction arrived at a mark—whether Malevich's square or Frankenthaler's pour—it was a hard-won artifact
left behind after years of intense observational, spiritual, or material friction. Today's decorative abstraction
copies the aftermath of that battle without ever stepping onto the battlefield.

The Hushing Antidote:

The HUSHING methodology establishes a defiant counter-framework to this visual bankruptcy. Named after
the historic, industrial mining technique where impounded mountain water was violently released to strip away
topsoil and lay bare the mineral veins beneath, Hushing demands that an artist's relationship with a subject or
landscape must be rigorously earned before a single mark is committed to canvas.

The framework operates across three vital structural phases:

1. Impoundment (The Accumulation of Knowledge):

The artist must reject the quick snapshot or superficial
observation. Instead, they act as a reservoir, slowly accumulating dense, localized truth. This means
embedding oneself deeply within the geology, labour, history, weather, and memory of a place. The
cognitive pressure must build until it can no longer be contained.

2. The First Strike (The Material Release): When the reservoir of earned knowledge is full, the painter
executes the First Strike. This is not a performative studio gesture, but a decisive, visceral discharge of
material and meaning. The mark is born from direct pressure, gravity, and presence.

29/09/2026

https://www.kanecunningham.co.uk/hushing.pdf

Landscape Painting - Upper Wharfedale

“I don't want to make a painting of the landscape you know. I want to make a painting that understands the landscape you know. When you acquire one of my paintings, you are not simply acquiring an image of place; you are acquiring the result of sustained observation, accumulated knowledge and a lifetime of artistic experience. HUSHING is the methodology through which that knowledge is transformed into painting. It gives the work its intellectual depth, cultural grounding and artistic authority. The value of the painting lies not only in what you see, but in the depth of understanding, judgement and experience embedded within it.”

Kane Cunningham



30/04/2026

I am delighted to be featured in the Scarborough Spy.
We discuss ideas related to the Big Ideas By The Sea festival and my recent landscape projects based in the Lakes and Wharfedale.

Scarborough Hospitality Association

I am offering visits to the studio by appointment.
Contact me directly via [email protected]
I am based in Scarborough.

Unframed works including etchings start at £175.
Front cover etching of Scarborough Harbour.

Further work can be seen on the website
www.thackeraryandbrownegallery.com

Address

Old Parcels Office Westborough
Scarborough
YO111TN

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Thackeray and Browne Gallery posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Museum

Send a message to Thackeray and Browne Gallery:

Shortcuts

Share

Category