Ethel Anticipates a Glut is an observant glimpse into the dramas of countryside life, transformed through the artist’s imaginative world of anthropomorphic animals. Bent low over freshly turned earth, Ethel - a determined, apron-clad badger - busily prepares for an overabundance of produce, carefully gathering and organising her harvest while an attentive audience of mice and garden birds looks on. The title itself is quintessentially British in tone and wit. A “glut” suggests the familiar gardener’s dilemma of suddenly having far too much of one crop, and Walker captures that mixture of pride and subtle anxiety perfectly. Ethel appears deep in concentration, anticipating the inevitable avalanche of marrows, beans, or root vegetables that allotment life so often delivers. Around her feet, tiny mice queue expectantly like loyal allotment helpers, while robins perch confidently atop her back and spade handle, as though fully entitled to supervise proceedings.

Jonathan Walker’s work is deeply rooted in the Devon countryside where he lives and works, drawing inspiration from hedgerows, allotments, woodlands and the creatures inhabiting them. His paintings imagine a parallel rural society where foxes, badgers, hares and mice adopt human habits and personalities without ever losing their essential wildness. Influenced by classic British illustration yet entirely contemporary in spirit, Walker combines expressive draughtsmanship, loose fluid watercolour and understated social satire to create scenes that feel both whimsical and strangely familiar.