NB: This painting can be secured now. It is on show in John Dyer’s ‘Spirit of the Harvest’ Exhibition at the Eden Project and will be shipped after 9 February 2026, or sooner on request.

In ‘Winnowing in the Wind, the Philippines Rice Harvest’ John Dyer, Eden Project’s Artist in Residence and an official Artist for the Earth with Earth Day, paints directly in the tropical heat of the Philippine rice fields. Commissioned for the United Nations’ Year of Rice, this artwork was created en plein air during the harvest, when the intense heat meant acrylic paint dried almost as soon as it touched the canvas. This demanded rapid decisions and instinctive brushwork, a challenge that reveals Dyer’s unique ability to respond immediately to colour, light and movement in front of him.

The composition is filled with life: workers thresh and winnow the rice, the straw catching the breeze as it is separated, while others hoist sacks of grain from the paddy. Water buffalo work steadily across the fields, integral to the farming process, while palms, huts and distant mountains anchor the horizon beneath a brilliant blue sky.

Rice is the staple food for more than half the world’s population, sustaining billions each day. In the Philippines, the crop is not only an essential source of nourishment but also central to culture, family and community life. Dyer’s expressive brushstrokes and radiant palette transform the labour of the harvest into a luminous celebration of food and humanity.

Painted on location under fierce tropical light, every mark carries the immediacy of that moment — pigment applied, drying instantly, leaving a permanent trace of the artist’s instinct and the energy of the scene.

This original artwork is both a joyful expression of colour and a cultural record of the rice harvest in the Philippines. Collecting a John Dyer painting is to invest in the unique vision of one of the UK's leading environmental artists and to bring the warmth, energy and life of the tropics into your home.

Item Information

"After the main crop has been collected and threshed by machine, the workers return to the paddy to collect the remaining rice straw by hand. This is then sorted in the breeze to extract as much rice as they can. Water buffalo stand idle in the heat of the day and the light is searingly bright, reflecting on the dry landscape. A tripod is erected to speed up the sifting of the rice grains and individuals winnow small piles by hand using the breeze to separate the rice from the straw. The rice is collected in white sacks and loaded onto an assortment of vehicles – jeepneys, bikes, motorbikes. Later in the day when the farmers have departed, mothers and their children arrive to sift through the rice straw, extracting enough for maybe one meal that evening. Much of the rice is spread in the road to dry and we drive over it as we depart from this amazing location, the rice being raked flat again after our departure."

John Dyer

The painting is featured in the book 'Painting the Colours of the World' by Kate Dinn.

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