Inside comes out

A man for all that

Oil on canvas board - 410 mm x 290 mm

2011

Influences

Here are some people who interest me, inspire me and who I have learned from and admire:

VINCENT VAN GOGH
Vincent's letters have taught me so much about how to draw, keep drawing, paint and keep working. In one letter to Theo he says this about how his early work is developing :
" If it is impossible, it is impossible, but I am going to try it even though I don't know how it ought to be done. I don't know myself how I paint it. I just sit down with a white board in front of the spot that appeals to me . . . (when the work is underway) I lay it to one side and when I have rested a bit, I go and look at it with a kind of awe. Then I am still dissatisfied. Yet I can see in my work an echo of what appealed to me, I can see that the scenery has told me something, has spoken to me and that I have taken it down in shorthand. My shorthand may contain words that cannot be deciphered, mistakes or gaps, and yet there is something left of what the wood or the beach or the figure has told me, and it isn't in tame or conventional language derived from a studied manner or from some system, but from nature herself."
(3 September 1882)

PAUL NASH
For me the best of British art is about landscape. Paul Nash is one of the great English artists of the 20th Century. He is one of the artists who capture and share the essence of our landscape.

DAVID HOCKNEY
Hockney's quest to constantly rethink the way images are made and the way he explores painting, photography, print-making and the world of visual art is something I find constantly fascinating.

RICHARD HAMILTON
Hamilton's work just fascinates me. Every time I visit an exhibition of his work it engages me. It is thoughtful and intricate. It relates to the technology in our lives and to the media that we receive information and messages from.

CARL GILES
Giles was a master draughtsman. His depiction of life in Britain in the latter part of the 20th century makes him one of our great british artists.

CHARLES KEEPING
Charles Keeping was a gifted illustrator and storyteller - working between the 1960's and the 1980's. His home was London and his last great work was to illustrate the complete Charles Dickens for the Folio Society. During his working life his range of drawing and experimentation produced work of great variety. Much of it was dark and suited to ghost stories and the macabre, but he also captured the spirit of London and Londoners. His own stories for children were beautifully illustrated in bold experimental colours which progressed as colour printing improved in the 70's and 80's. Seek out his books published by the Oxford University Press. You can also see nearly all of his work at the Keeping Gallery in South London (Telephone: 020 8460 7679). Link.

ROBERT CRUMB
Robert Crumb has been accused of being sexist and racist, but for me Crumb is an artist who draws the world as he sees it. His drawings examine street life, and in particular, the american urban landscape, and, of course, the women he is attracted to. Robert Crumb continues to draw the world around him. He has done some fine landscape drawings of the villages around his home in France. But as Crumb says himself: "Yeah! But is it Art?" Well, I think it is great art.

Inside comes out

3 Mar 2011

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