Artist Statement
The day I broke my neck 1982 at age sixteen I now look back upon as a positive day, my life would of been so different in so many ways if I were not paralysed. One example is that I would of never of become an artist. It was during a year long stay in Stoke Mandeville that I decided that I wanted to study art.
During my time as an art student in the late 1980's while experimenting with all the usual different mediums that I discovered a true love of and fascination in watercolour.
I have thoroughly explored watercolour and have experimented in using it in many different ways. While studying Art History at college I became very interested in how Klee and Cezanne handled watercolour, I sort of use two styles and you may be able to see their influence in some of my work today.
I like to keep my work very loose, fresh and wet looking even when dry. I am interested in the effects and reactions between certain colours, the way colours mix and separate on paper and the transparent qualities of the medium. It is most important to me that the paint is laid down with love and then left alone so that the tiny particles of pigment are not disturbed, in so doing the painting is alive and the colours glow.
My approach is to do a lot of thinking and decision making before my brush even makes contact with the paper, everything has to be considered first on how it will affect the painting, so when I lay colours down and build the image it is done directly, positively and with confident speed. Obviously this is quite different from feeling one's way into a painting, exploring and experimenting until one is pleased. I am very interested in negative shapes, they are the spaces between the positive shapes.
I am very interested in painting and drawing life studies, the female nude being my favourite subject, from here I sometimes use this as a base from which to go towards semi-abstract. As a student I used to be very interested in the life drawings by Schiele. I enjoyed the life studio and its atmosphere so much, I went to it every week for four years.
The two most important qualities that I like to try to produce in a painting are simple but strong composition and light.
My interest in life studies and watercolour make an ideal marriage because after all humans are 90% made up of water !
Neville Austin.
Contact Tel: 01424 892856