An artist and academic fascinated by ¡°edges, borders and the scraps of land people tend not to care about¡± has completed a book and devoted to the unexpected ¡°untrammelled and untrod¡± landscapes around motorways.

Edward Chell, senior lecturer in fine art at the University for the Creative Arts Canterbury, grew up near Halifax and remembers cycling along the not-yet-completed trans-Pennine M62, where the vast signs gave the motorway a ¡°monumental, even sublime¡± feeling.

He was astonished by the amount of wildlife around him when he was once stuck in a traffic jam on the M2. And he is intrigued by how motorways such as the M40 consist of ¡°a succession of staggering ¡®reveals¡¯?¡±, as each bend opens up a new panorama.

Since the 18th century, Mr Chell argued, sightseeing has meant ¡°going to places with views, which are in some sense edifying. Motorways aren¡¯t like that, because we rush through them and they are very utilitarian. But, similar to a lot of places we tend to ignore, there are hidden gems when we look for them. I am fascinated by the beauty of their utilitarianism, finding the extraordinary within the ordinary, which is visually very refreshing.¡±

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This interest in ¡°neglected territories¡± had led Mr Chell to study environments such as stairwells, connecting corridors, doctors¡¯ waiting rooms and supermarket car parks.

He secured an Arts and Humanities Research Council fellowship for the academic year 2012-13, which released him from teaching and enabled him to carry out the research for the exhibition and book, both titled Soft Estate.

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Motorway verges are rather harder to explore, he explained, except from the safety of a car park or a slip road, so he is careful to wear a fluorescent jacket and hard hat. These environments are inaccessible and seem deliberately closed off, but the fact that they are not often encroached on gives a sense of ¡°nature bubbling up¡±.

¡°Motorways are very controlled environments to funnel people along at high speed,¡± Mr Chell said, ¡°but they form natural as well as industrial corridors, creating what nature writer Richard Mabey calls ¡®Britain¡¯s largest unofficial nature reserve¡¯.¡±

One result, Mr Chell said, is that plants such as scurvy grass (a salt-tolerant coastal plant) can be found ¡°burgeoning¡± all over the country. ¡°You get extraordinary plant life because there are no agrichemicals and relatively little pollution,¡± he added.

Well aware that few other people share his ¡°passion for this sort of territory¡±, Mr Chell nonetheless argued that ¡°it affects a huge range of users, so the habitat deserves a bit more attention: this is here, this is what it is like ¨C and it is often beautiful¡±.

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The multimedia show ¨C which includes silhouette images of roadside plants ¨C is at the Bluecoat in Liverpool until 23 February.

matthew.reisz@tsleducation.com