Michelle Dash – Dreamlike Surreal Garden Scene

Michelle Dash – Surreal Garden Scene with Figures, Oil on Board, 1995

Original oil on board by the Bristol artist Michelle Dash, dated 1995, depicting a dreamlike garden or wooded landscape with small figures, including children and a seated female figure. The scene has a striking surreal quality, with tall dark topiary-like trees, distant hills, a crescent moon and tiny figures arranged within a theatrical, almost fairy-tale setting.

The work is painted on a shaped flat panel, with the border or “frame” painted directly onto the board rather than applied separately. This gives the piece a distinctive object-like quality, somewhere between folk painting, stage-set design and narrative illustration. The dark greens and blues create a strong moonlit atmosphere, while the small figures add charm, mystery and a sense of quiet storytelling.

Dash is associated with Bristol and the South West, and her later work is known for its narrative, mythic and dreamlike qualities, often drawing on fairy tales, medieval imagery, folklore and transformation. This earlier 1995 panel already shows many of those interests in a highly decorative and unusual form. A characterful and atmospheric contemporary naive-surreal work, well suited to collectors of outsider, folk-inspired and narrative British art.

Artist: Michelle Dash
Title: Surreal Garden Scene with Figures
Medium: Oil on board
Date: 1995
Framed size: 61.5 x 41 cm
Signature/inscription: Signed and dated Michelle Dash '95
Frame: Painted integral border on shaped flat panel with rounded upper corners
Condition: The work is in good overall vintage condition, with age-related wear, particularly to the integral frame area and surface marks. As this is painted on a flat shaped board with an integral painted edge, there is no separate conventional frame. Please see photographs for details.