The Marsh House by Christopher Gee

I saw a painting by Essex-based artist Christopher Gee on Instagram recently.  It featured an old house, with many windows, set against a dark background of trees and an inky sky.  I felt as though I recognised the building.

Gee’s work really appeals to me.  The muted tonal palette and sophisticated naivety of his silent, brooding landscapes, deserted moonlit buildings, beautifully rendered animals of myth and folklore, as well as his stylised portrait commissions, are both striking and accomplished.

His painting, titled The House on the Marshes, reminded me of somewhere half-remembered and the image haunted me for days.  While I ruminated and contemplated buying it with some of my artist support pledge ‘funds’ someone beat me to it.  A few days later, sorting through some old books at the back of a cupboard,  I realised why the house in the painting felt so familiar.

One of my favourite childhood novels was ‘When Marnie Was There’ by Joan G Robinson.  It is the story of a lonely foster-child, Anna, sent to stay with a kind old couple on the Norfolk coast. There, she befriends a strange, elusive young girl, Marnie, who lives in a large and mysterious house on the Staithe – overlooking the salt marshes.  Part ghost story, part coming-of-age tale, the house at its centre was The Marsh House and Christopher’s painting matched its description in the book closely. (I still have my slightly foxed copy from all those years ago). Here it is:

“The house, which faced straight on to the creek, was large and old and square, its many small windows framed in faded blue woodwork….. This was no ordinary house, in a long road like the one she lived in.  This house stood alone, and had a quiet, mellow, everlasting look as if it had been there so long, watching the tide rise and fall, that it had forgotten the busyness of real life and sunk into a dream.”

Turns out Christopher is a fan of East Anglian ghost stories and happily accepted a commission to paint a slightly different version of the first painting that had captured my imagination. So now I have my very own ‘bespoke’ Marsh House, standing alone in the moonlight overlooking the creek, with the reeds of the salt marsh in the foreground.   Strange how things often work out in the end – in life as well as in stories.

For more information on Christopher Gee’s small-scale works on paper visit:  www.christophergeepaintings.co.uk.