Our Featured artist is Paul Denham, Paul has been with Gallerina for 10 years now & we have enjoyed working with him & watching his career go from strength to strength, Paul now enjoys a huge collector base & shows in several galleries around the country but luckily for us he is a local lad & holds our beautiful region close to his heart as it feeds his paintings & is his life.
'My working week begins with a long walk on the moors, starting out on pathways then freely rambling across the trackless expanse of Upper Teasdale. I tend to walk alone, rarely taking photographs or sketching, but simply soaking up the landscape (and more often than not the rain) to paint from memory once back in the studio. Working this way helps me to get to the essence of a place and my own emotions towards it.
Occasionally, I venture further afield but it’s this bleak though beautiful, local landscape which mainly inspires my work. A magical place of changeable weather, often creating veils of mist, rain and snow which hide then reveal the landscape.
When the skies do clear you behold an infinite stretch of moorland, like layered ribbons of peaty brown fading to distant blues, reaching as far as the eye can see.
For the rest of the week I work at the studio capturing a memory of past walks. Absorbed in my painting process, hours can feel like minutes.
During the initial stages of the painting I work the boards vigorously, carving markings and fast brush work. As they evolve the process becomes gentler and gentler finishing in soft glazes of colour.
My work on paper starts with a gentle approach where layers of paint, charcoal & a pigment I create using local peat are built up.
When a piece is complete I look forward to delivering it to Gallerina which has become a home from home for me. I feel so lucky to make a living doing something I love and to hear that my work gives people a calm place to look upon after their busy day.
The act of painting is equally as important as the finished piece. But the nicest part of being an artist is to know that the painting has found its true home and when that happens with my work it is an amazing feeling.
When people ask me what I do for a living I tend to not say ‘artist’ but answer with 'a moorland painter’ and if my paintings achieve capturing the landscape I love and I live up to that title then I’m happy.'
Go onto Paul's page on our site to see his most recent work on paper & board.
