PAINTINGS by Suzanna Reynolds, currently on show in the circle bar at Malvern Theatres, conjure up images of the setting sun.

Her empty landscapes, whether small or huge, capture the peaceful atmosphere of dawn or dusk seen from the top of the Malvern Hills.

"They start as abstracts, but people read them as landscapes or seascapes. People are very drawn in and get a sense of stillness and healing from them," she said.

"I was always trying to merge the figurative with the abstract and it seems to have happened unconsciously."

The Scottish born artist, who now lives in Malvern, likes working in both pastels and oils, grinding pure pigments in natural earth colours, such as terra rosa or raw sierra and sculpting the paint on to the canvas with her hands.

"I have been using red a lot recently to give the sense of red earth and its nourishing aspect," she said.

"I'm trying to help people experience that sense of illumination you feel when the light is over the land at sunrise or sunset."

This warm glow is evident in works such as the 5ft by 6ft canvas entitled The Way is Open, that hints of a distant horizon.

Symbolic birds, soaring between earth and sky and triangles, representing the sacred geometry of pyramids, appear in some of her pictures and there is an occasional skeleton of a tree.

In her blue paintings, Dark Ascending and Between Worlds I and II, emerging bursts of light give a suggestion of imminent dawn over a seascape.

The pictures, priced from £95 to £2,300, can be seen at Malvern Theatres until June 30.