Wiltshire artist paints mural to celebrate railway wildlife

The paintings are in a surrealist style, reminiscent of Lewis Carrol's Alice in Wonderland

A new mural has emerged at Paddington station to highlight the diversity of habitats and creatures found along rail corridors.

The mural is a print of five oil paintings by Wiltshire-based artist Cindy Powell.

Painting in a surrealist style, the artwork was designed to be reminiscent of Lewis Carrol's Alice in Wonderland.

Network Rail commissioned the work to promote its commitment to protecting wildlife.

Cindy Powell is a MA student at Falmouth University

Ms Powell said: "I wanted to highlight Network Rail's environmental strategies and biodiversity action plans by painting a Pentaptych, with a tea party theme, that had all sorts of creatures and a train intertwined into it.

"I strive to encourage a symbiotic and harmonious relationship between humans and all of earth's creatures by creating fun, colourful figurative and surrealistic type paintings.''

The painting depicts a Great Western Railway Class 800 IET alongside images of British wildlife

Jane Austin, Network Rail's director of engineering and asset management for the Western route, said: "The railway provides a rich and diverse tapestry of habitats for biodiversity and is home to many species of plants and animals, including some that are rare or endangered.

"We're committed to protecting these biodiverse habitats and achieving no net loss of biodiversity on railway land by 2024, with a net gain on each route by 2035."

Painted in a surrealist style, the artwork shows animals having a tea party

"Cindy's artwork encapsulates the joy that nature and wildlife can inspire and centres Network Rail's ambitious biodiversity targets in the larger rail context, with trains, plants and animals co-existing with all the benefits that they bring to one another."

The artwork can be found near the entrance to the Hammersmith and City Line and Paddington Taxi Rank.