If anyone ever seriously questions the merits of safeguarding the natural world, show them a painting by Mary Ann Rogers. Since no artist captures more deftly the grace and humour of animals and birds, the elemental beauty of the countryside they inhabit, that should be the only answer required. Mary Ann captures the essence of her subjects, the turn of a bird's head, the power of boxing hares. It is the abstract instance that is so arresting, not an exact representation but the moment itself.

That is not to say Mary Ann eschews study or research. On her smallholding in Northumberland, remote by most people's standards, she is surrounded by many of her subjects. She breeds the strutting farmyard fowl she paints so colourfully and sees the hares whose entrancing, whiplike bodies and beady eyes are recorded so reverentially.

This is not a privilege most of us enjoy, so we must bow to Mary Ann's judgement. She's an expert and therefore qualified to know what to leave in or omit to portray a guinea fowl, say, or a mad March hare in it's essence. Most animals, flowers, or even landscapes, we take in at a glance. We could say that we like them but we couldn't really explain why. With the surest touch of the brush, and almost parsimonious application of paint, she fixes what we appreciate in that fleeting moment so we can study it and revel in it.

Her style has been called Oriental and you can see why. There is neither more nor less than is required in a Mary Ann Rogers watercolour. A painting of two greyhounds may appear to consist only of a few dashes of colour but behind those delicate marks and that practised economy lie years of observation, trial and error.

There was no smooth passage into painting for Mary Ann Rogers, no highbrow art school place awaiting after school. At Newcastle Polytechnic she studied environmental studies but got married and left to live in a remote part of Northumberland before completing the course and by 1986 was single with two daughters to support.

There were always animals about the place, but a natural artistic bent had to wait before finding full expression. While confined to the home during the years of young motherhood she painted babies, household objects or vegetables. Mundane stuff but it hardly mattered. The important thing was that, having previously thought that environmental studies was more important than art, she was discovering that the most important thing is to do what you do best.

A first gallery exhibition in 1986 was a success. The public took to Mary Ann's work immediately, falling for its celebratory qualities, its eloquent appreciation of colour and movement. Exhibition has followed exhibition and there are many successful print runs. Galleries all around the UK now show Mary Ann's work which is invariably popular without being populist.

Mary Ann's paintings are exquisite. Who wouldn't yearn after her painting of Indian runners, those implausibly upright ducks with their comically long necks and bills? Who wouldn't look day after day, and never tire of looking, at her so seemingly simple depiction of spring daffodils in an abundant tangle of green and gold?

There have been exhibitions in Edinburgh, London and Hong Kong. The breathtaking plumage of a cockerel, the patchwork of colours in a changing landscape, are, it seems, universal sources of pleasure.

But the work gently challenges, takes new directions, develops both in terms of subject matter and stylistically. In more recent paintings, the landscape viewed from her windows through the changing seasons has become an important subject. This is a change of a very different order to the swift turn of a lurcher or a hare. Where we might only see green and brown, Mary Ann will see many changing colours and shades. As a hare is reduced to essence of hare, so the Rogers landscape becomes almost an abstract, a lesson in how to see and appreciate it's subtle qualities. She has lived in her current home for some time now. The children are all but grown up. But the art evolves, and that is an exciting thought for those who appreciate the work of this talented Northumbrian.

What is already extremely good can only get better, as an artist so dedicated to her medium and subjects strives to do them even greater justice.

David Whetstone, Arts Editor
The Journal, Newcastle