Painting the wild: a Q&A with artist Rebecca Howard
Meet Rebecca Howard, the artist who’s spent two years travelling Britain to paint nine rewilding sites — from ancient rainforest in Cornwall to saltmarsh in Lancashire.
Published 21/09/2026
There’s something about seeing a rewilding landscape that’s hard to put into words — the first beaver dam reshaping a stream, deadwood left to rot and feed new growth, the return of an endangered species. For artist Rebecca Howard, painting has become a way of capturing exactly that: not just what these places look like, but what it means for them to be healing.
“I didn’t set out to show what we’ve lost but rather what we have to gain.”
Rebecca Howard
Over the past two years, Rebecca has travelled the length of the country — from the RSPB-managed saltmarshes of Lancashire’s Ribble Estuary to an ancient temperate rainforest in Cornwall — visiting nine independent rewilding sites across the Rewilding Network. The result is A Year in the Wild, an exhibition that opened this September at Knepp, one of the UK’s most celebrated rewilding sites. Through the sale of these extraordinary prints and cards, she’s raising funds for Rewilding Britain.
We caught up with Rebecca to talk about what drew her to rewilding, the challenge of painting an ecological process rather than a view and what she hopes people take away from the exhibition.
Your Rewilding Series documents nine distinct sites across the Rewilding Britain Rewilding Network — from temperate rainforests in Cornwall to saltmarshes in Lancashire and urban rewilding in Derby. What first inspired you to focus on rewilding and the human stories behind it?
I’ve been passionate about wildlife and our natural landscapes since I was very young, building ponds in my garden as a child and watching birds from my window. As an artist, I’ve focused on the natural landscape for years, but I was finding that more and more of the landscapes I painted weren’t truly wild; they were heavily influenced by humans, whether it was a seascape or a hillside. It all seemed somehow controlled. I think I wanted to discover what our ‘natural’ landscape looks like without the grooming, trimming and ploughing.
I’m also fascinated by the drive and determination of a small group of rewilders who are putting back what has been damaged and giving life back to places we all love. I felt their stories were important to tell, as many of these people are rewilding their land purely out of their love of nature, not for monetary gain or any kind of recognition. It’s truly remarkable what’s been achieved on many of the sites I’ve visited.
Many of your titles — like ‘Architects at Work’ at Knepp, ‘Being a Beaver’ at Allestree Park or ‘Deadwood Breathing New Life’ — focus on species that act as ecological engineers and hidden natural processes. How do you translate dynamic ecological actions into a static painting?
Well, this is difficult! Sometimes it’s about looking at a process and trying to convey a story with the picture. For instance, I joined rewilders Robin and Annie at Moor Barton, their Devon-based rewilding site, to ringbark larch trees, which were crowding out native woodland. The painting I chose to create shows the stump of a larch covered in porcelain fungi; the dead larch feeds the fungi [as the tree breaks down, it provides nutrients for them], and the fungi help return those nutrients to the woodland, which now has more space to grow. This painting can be viewed as a pretty example of porcelain mushrooms, or you can look deeper and see what ecological action is taking place. Deciphering my work is part of the fun of viewing it!
Visiting these sites in person means stepping into environments undergoing active recovery. Was there a particular site or moment during your visits that took your breath away or completely shifted how you envisioned a painting or rewilding?
Definitely, there were many moments, but one which sticks out was while visiting Derek Gow on his site in Coombeshead in Devon. As we walked across one of his fields, he picked up a stone and pointed out that we have been changing our environment for thousands of years, right back when people first started farming. For example, we removed large rocks from fields to grow our crops. This is just one small intervention, but it has changed the look of our landscapes. As time crept on, we ploughed the soil, removed trees and controlled our environment more and more. The simple act of leaving dead branches to rot on the ground and leaves to decompose has had a remarkable effect on the diversity of wildlife at Coombeshead. Derek had made huge piles of logs and sticks in various places across his farm. These piles act as hiding places for reptiles as well as safe spaces for ground-nesting birds. As Derek said to me, “Every creature needs a place to live.” And he’s right. We all need to be just a little bit more relaxed about tidying up. I guess I always knew it was a better way to be, but after this summer’s drought, I have been amazed at just how resilient plants surrounded by dead leaves have been compared to plants with bare soil.
Landscape art often focuses on grand vistas, whereas your series highlights landscape repair and hope. What role do you think art plays in helping people connect with rewilding and biodiversity loss?
This is a good question. Art is incredibly powerful when it comes to telling stories. It has the ability to focus the viewer’s attention. The scale of my work is such that you will feel closer to these places. I hope they evoke memories of time spent in nature and encourage more people to engage with their local natural spaces too. I didn’t set out to show what we’ve lost but rather what we have to gain. We don’t have to just accept that we’ve lost our natural environment and that is the end of it. We are at a turning point now where there is a stronghold of people willing to look after their land and not only protect it for the future but actually heal it too. We are too used to hearing about negative environmental stories, but rewilding is a story of not just hope but also a call to action. Anyone can get involved in rewilding, even if it’s just visiting a rewilding site.
Exhibiting ‘A Year in the Wild’ at Knepp, one of the UK’s most celebrated rewilding sites, feels very full-circle, especially with prints supporting Rewilding Britain. What do you hope visitors take away when they walk through the exhibition?
When viewing ‘A Year in the Wild’, I hope that people find beauty in my paintings and see the world for what it can be. Each of the paintings highlights a different element of landscape restoration, whether it be the reintroduction of animals, tree planting or wetland creation. These nuggets of information will sit alongside the artwork and give members of the public ideas about how to action small-scale recovery of land, like your own garden. Reading about how these dynamic rewilding sites are changing their landscape for the better, you will learn about the hard work and consideration that goes into the recovery of a landscape. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not just about downing your tools and leaving nature to sort itself out! There is so much potential out there to restore and re-nature wherever we choose. I hope that members of the public feel a sense of positivity and see a real chance to make a difference.
Do you have any plans to visit more sites to do more of the same?
I definitely have the bug now. There are so many amazing projects happening in the UK it will be hard to pick where I’ll visit next! I hope to extend my work and explore the rewilding of our seas, as, unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance to visit any marine rewilding projects. I’d also like to revisit some of the sites I’ve seen over the last two years. It’s amazing how quickly the land is healing. We have beavers in our waterways now. Perhaps in five years there will be even wilder landscapes created by those now-free populations, or maybe another lost species will have been reintroduced — wildcats, for example. Who knows? One thing is certain: the future is exciting, and I would love to document it!
Help Rebecca support Rewilding Britain
Explore Rebecca’s Rewilding Series , from which a percentage of profits are kindly donated to Rewilding Britain.
Visit the exhibition
A Year in the Wild runs from 12 September until 18 October 2026, Monday to Sunday, from 10 am‑4 pm, in the Knepp Wilding Shop. Entry to the exhibition is free.
