short text about SPT by Pellegrino Trubini

Stephen Philip Treherne

‘One should never paint that which one sees but only that which has never been seen’
- Tristan Corbière

Born in Pembury, England in1958, Stephen Treherne studied at Ampleforth College, Camberwell School of Art(London) and at the Hertsfordshire University (St.Albans).
For ten years Treherne worked at ‘Space studios’ in MartelloStreet, East London and then moved to North Yorkshire to work at the Motor House, East Rounton.
Treherne is a pupil of Miles Peter Richmond.
Since 2001Treherne has been living on the border between Umbria and Tuscany, in the remote mountain village of Sarteano, nestled on a plateau which straddles the Val di Chiana and the Val d’Orcia in the southernmost province of Siena.
Here he has worked in forests, on mountain ridges, in olive groves and woods near hermit cells once used by St.Francis and in and around the small medieval hilltop castle-towns.

Working directly from nature, immersed in it, with his paints and easel, almost becoming one with it , using all his senses Treherne intends to celebrate, to re-enchant and to explore with immediacy and feeling the metaphors and emblems of nature using intuition and imagination. The colours and forms conjured up on canvas and paper ‘speak’ or ‘sing’ from their inner aspect, from their inner depths The passionate and intense explosion of colours and marks enkindle the human soul the desire for renewal, the urge to muse, meditate, ponder, reflect and dream.
From the wilderness, the ‘dark night of the soul’, the forest of Dante’s Inferno or the narrow passages of a labyrinth we are drawn towards an inner light, towards mountain peaks, our gaze dances through treetops upwards from darkness towards light and illumination .


From the third book of Milton’s Paradise Lost

Thus in the year
Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of Even or Morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or Summer’s rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank
Of Nature’s works to me expunged and raised
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, Celestial Light,
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.



Pellegrino Trubini 2008














Stephen Philip Treherne

‘One should never paint that which one sees but only that which has never been seen’
- Tristan Corbière

Born in Pembury, England in1958, Stephen Treherne studied at Ampleforth College, Camberwell School of Art(London) and at the Hertsfordshire University (St.Albans).
For ten years Treherne worked at ‘Space studios’ in MartelloStreet, East London and then moved to North Yorkshire to work at the Motor House, East Rounton.
Treherne is a pupil of Miles Peter Richmond.
Since 2001Treherne has been living on the border between Umbria and Tuscany, in the remote mountain village of Sarteano, nestled on a plateau which straddles the Val di Chiana and the Val d’Orcia in the southernmost province of Siena.
Here he has worked in forests, on mountain ridges, in olive groves and woods near hermit cells once used by St.Francis and in and around the small medieval hilltop castle-towns.

Working directly from nature, immersed in it, with his paints and easel, almost becoming one with it , using all his senses Treherne intends to celebrate, to re-enchant and to explore with immediacy and feeling the metaphors and emblems of nature using intuition and imagination. The colours and forms conjured up on canvas and paper ‘speak’ or ‘sing’ from their inner aspect, from their inner depths The passionate and intense explosion of colours and marks enkindle the human soul the desire for renewal, the urge to muse, meditate, ponder, reflect and dream.
From the wilderness, the ‘dark night of the soul’, the forest of Dante’s Inferno or the narrow passages of a labyrinth we are drawn towards an inner light, towards mountain peaks, our gaze dances through treetops upwards from darkness towards light and illumination .


From the third book of Milton’s Paradise Lost

Thus in the year
Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of Even or Morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or Summer’s rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank
Of Nature’s works to me expunged and raised
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, Celestial Light,
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.