Simon Periton first made a name for himself by subverting the genteel connotations of the lacey doily with intricately cut anarchist and CND symbols, Islamic patterns and images from Punk, psychedelia and pop art. “Taking his scalpel for a walk”, he called it, and that walk was invariably on the wild side. Superficial daintiness often acted as a decoy for darker and sometimes political concerns: with painstaking paper cutouts based on the poll tax riots, Trident nuclear missiles and the British involvement in Iraq.

Influenced by his time as a student at St Martins in the 1980s when the art and fashion departments frequently cross-fertilised, this multitasking artist was also disseminating his distinctive imagery in collaborations with Philip Treacy on a collection of anarchist-symbol hats (much beloved by the late Isabella Blow) as well as designs for Raf Simons and Comme des Garçons’ Junya Watanabe. He declared, “I don’t view an interesting fashion designer any differently than an interesting artist”.

Now Periton has branched out into an even wider range of media and extended his interests into more organic forms, albeit still underpinned by an abiding love of punk, psychedelia and the gothic. His current exhibition Celestial Agriculture is in the stately rural setting of Roche Court in Salisbury, Wiltshire, where the increasingly natural references in his new paintings, sculpture and works on paper are enhanced by these oh-so-English bucolic surroundings.

But there is nothing especially green or pleasant about Periton’s take on nature, especially as it dovetails with a new fascination with alchemy and transformative chemical processes. Arthur Rackham at his most gnarly and sinister or the ancient supernatural stirrings of Alan Garner’s novels come to mind: and the show is even presided over by a particularly ominous owl, silhouetted in gold plated steel and crowned with a tangle of brambles.

Other works include a trio of giant conker-like spikey sculptural balls, originally cut from cardboard and then cast in grey-painted resin with slivers of day-glo spray paint making them appear to glow from within; and a cut steel sculpture that unfolds like a malevolent tangled hedgerow. There’s also a darkly psychedelic leaf skeleton, its black steel lattice highlighted in fluorescent lacquer, which stands sentinel on the lawn and has the title Guerrilla Gardener.

Despite his provocative and flimsily fragile paper beginnings, and the strong whiff of malevolence to his most recent work, this Punkish maestro of the scalpel is also increasingly being asked to create permanent public sculptures. A plethora of nationwide projects range from a pair of bronze gates featuring coiled serpents for the newly refurbished Whitworth Gallery in Manchester, to a characteristically intricate slatted wooden cover with fruit leaf designs for a raised boatshed on the Grand Union Canal at Brentford Lock, and a lamppost and lanterns inspired by silkworms and moths outside Colchester’s First Site Gallery.

Most recently he has created Body Popper, a botanical frieze of silhouetted plant forms cut from vividly coloured vinyl, which extends along a 20-metre glass wall inside Camden Council’s new flagship offices in King’s Cross. With a horticultural installation slated for Waddesdon Manor this Summer and a permanent Alchemical Tree commissioned for Oxford University, it seems that the dark art of Simon Periton is now here to stay.

Simon Periton: Celestial Agriculture is at the New Art Centre Sculpture Park and Gallery in Salisbury until May 17