THE Arborealists, a group of professional artists – painters, print-makers, photographers and sculptors, united by a love of trees – have their first Dorset exhibition at the Market Yard gallery at Sculpture by the Lakes, the atmospheric watery sculpture park near Tincleton, a few miles east of Dorchester, until 19th April.

This is The Arborealists’ 40th exhibition, so appropriately there are 40 selected works, which give a delicious flavour of the range and creative skill of the artists. The now 50-strong group was founded by Tim Craven, who was the curator of Southampton City Art Gallery, and currently chairs the Friends of Southampton’s Museums, Archives and Galleries.

This debut Dorset show has been curated by Craven and Paul Newman, who is an artist renowned for his beautifully detailed drawings of trees and natural forms, who is creative director of Dorset Visual Arts at Sherborne House in Sherborne.

Artists in The Arborealists hail from across the UK and beyond and are united by their love of trees. Works range from dramatic to surreal as each individual employs a broad variety of working practices – scale, medium, philosophy, style and technique. What they share is a passion to bring to life the vast importance of trees and our dependence on them – a sentiment shared by Sculpture by the Lakes as it works to conserve many threatened tree species from around the world.

There are starkly stunning images, such as Emma Buckmaster’s etching The East Wind Blows, and the startling and slightly disturbing Ancient and Modern, a tree that looks like a helmet with blank bottomless rings for eyes, but is propped like an ancient oak, a watercolour on Hahnemule paper by Andrew Carnie.

Mesmerising detail that takes you into the organic heart of the tree or the wood can be seen in Kevin Tole’s charcoal and chalk on paper Carne Bech, Monterey Pine, or the timelessly more ancient Wistman’s Wood, an oil on canvas by Rosemary Mafrici. Howard Phipps, one of the country’s leading wood engravers has two works in the show, capturing the shapes, combes and beech trees of the chalk downland he knows so well.

An artist with a powerful commitment to the environment, Dorset-based Gary Cook brings an intense atmosphere to his paintings, whether the Crumnbling Wall on a cold and misty day or the mysterious Path Through Tangles.

More overtly contemporary images come from Bournemouth-based watercolorist Abi Kremer, who interprets Lady Park Woods with a vivid palette, capturing a magical wood where you think you might see fairies, if you stood very still for a long time! Ursula Leach, also Dorset-based and an outstanding abstract landscape artist, strips the shapes of trees or fields down to basics, using deep vivid colours. Both these artists, like most of The Arborealists, convey a deep feeling through their work for the ecology, history and importance of trees and woods.

Pictured: Tim Craven, The Tortworth Chestnut, watercolour; Abi Kremer, Lady Park Wood 1, watercolour; Gary Cook, Path Through Tangles, ink, watercolour and charcoal on board: ; Ursula Leach, Fall II, oil on canvas; Howard Phipps, Chilcombe, West Dorset, wood engraving (L)