Tuesday 27 July - Sunday 1 August 2010

10am - 5pm

Arthur's third solo exhibition at Harbour House takes the form of a retrospective, looking back over his thirty year career as an artist and illustrator. Early sketches and paintings in watercolour and gouache will hang alongside his more recent, ambitiously scaled acrylic paintings, taking a close look at the patterns in nature, and inspired by his travels in India and closer to home.

The impulse to paint, to respond to the world around me with line and colour, has been with me since I could hold a pencil. Being from a large family in the north of England, complicated by post-war displacements and deprivations, I found a refuge from the feuds and squabbles in our overcrowded home with my Christmas present pencils and crayons, and any scrap of paper I could find. No fly-leaf of the books at home, discarded wrapping paper, or any of the paper I salvaged escaped my pencils and paints. Reinterpreting the illustrations, adding my own or simply doodling brought me bliss, and a sense of order in my young life.
This was the foundation of my deepening interest in Art and Design. Encouraged by my teachers at school, I went on to art college, where the association with like-minded friends, the influence of teachers and the advanced older students' work propelled me into a life as an artist and illustrator. Having the good fortune to find work in a design studio, I left college and I learnt the exacting skills of a graphic designer and illustrator.

During this time I continued to paint and sketch outdoors. My travels abroad brought me into contact with art and artists of very different cultures, enriching my vision and ambitions as a painter. The work of eastern European primitives, and the art of India in particular, had a profound effect on my work. Drawn to nature and narrative, my work often suggest a story, reflecting my love of literature and in particular children's books. Working for most of my artistic life in illustration and design there are strong elements of these disciplines my work. In recent work I have painted on a much larger, almost theatrical scale. My images have a tableau effect, like stills from movie. Being encouraged by the interest and sale of my larger works, I plan to continue exploring large scale paintings.

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