Artist Statement
Learning to paint is like mastering the piano, once you’ve learnt, your
desire is to make beautiful music. Perhaps to play Beethoven or Mozart.
Technical proficiency with any one medium is just the beginning. A master of the medium can go onto to express their thoughts and feelings about the world to one and all. One can create a masterpiece.
My desire is to express the beauty in what otherwise might go unnoticed. Whether it’s the subtle nuances of colour in a flower, or the interesting flicker of light on a piece of wood, I want to draw ones attention to the extraordinary in the ordinary.
Something’s are intrinsically beautiful they need no introduction, other things are quiet and understated and need careful handling in order to draw out. All these things have a place in my work.
Impressionist or Realist
Is someone who paints in a representational manner, in reality a painter of abstraction?
Certainly my concern is with the basis of abstraction with which the painting is based upon. But am I an abstract painter as is understood in modern day parlance, the answer is surely no.
An impressionist perhaps?
Certainly the impressionist movement headed up by the likes of Claude Monet, Mary Cassatt and Renoir have influenced many contemporary oil painters, me included. But French impressionism is concerned primarily with the play of light and how it effects the colours. This is paramount in impressionism and to the exclusion of other things . As the famous American Painter Richard Schmid says ‘ I prefer to use the full orchestra’. As do I.
Surely then a realist?
This would be so, were it not for the influence of the American impressionists, and I would include John Singer Sargent, amongst them. I believe that a painting that is not fully resolved, that allows the observer to finish in their mind’s eye the picture, has a much greater interest.
A British Painter
I’m fond of saying as did Prime Minister John Major, that much of my training has been learnt attending the university of life.
Today there’s much greater opportunity to study the painters of any other country. I continue to study the likes of the artist Raphael, Rembrandt van Rijn, Nicolai Fechin, Joaquín Sorolla, and so to the international contemporary artists Gregg Kreutz, David A. Leffel, Ken Howard and the like.
Brief Biography
At about the age of eleven, my grandfather took me to see the painting that line the railings of Bayswater Road on a Sunday morning. This sparked a desire to paint with Oils, something that my grandfather encouraged with a purchase of a few tubes of paint from Hamley’s that summer.
My first painting was a copy of one we had at home. It was painted pretty much with out aid of a paint brush, since we hadn’t bought one. The result was admired by one and all. From that time on, I always believed I had an aptitude for painting.
The Film Industry
On leaving school my desire was to pursue a career in movie production. I worked for a few very well known film companies.
Although painting off and on through out, it wasn’t until the last decade, that I’ve pursued wholly a career as an artist. In part my attention was turned more to painting, due to my life long struggle with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Committing myself to painting fulltime allowed me to better tackle the problems associated with OCD and the strict conformities of working nine to five.
Has this ailment influenced my work. Undoubtedly like many with OCD, I find it hard to settle for anything that’s not just right. I’m a perfectionist, I have to work hard to curb this tendency.
I hope that the art that I produce, brings joy and beauty into the lives of those who possess it.
Brad J Gerrard
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