Anthony Birchwood

Painting has been my life from as far back as I can remember. For me, the process of painting is a personal dialogue which explores the relationships between us and the perceived world. In a sense it's the activity that lets me know that I'm living. My influences are quite varied - from Masaccio to Pontormo, Turner to Sutherland, Pollock to Hodgkin. It's not always easy to see how these influences work, but these are the artists that make me want to paint. 

In the past I've lived in many parts of Britain, drifting between the city and the countryside, rarely in either for long, and working from these extremities of nature and neo-nature. I've also travelled extensively in Europe, the United States, North Africa and a small part of Asia, sometimes staying for extended periods, my method and application being directly influenced by place. Despite my travels, I do have a natural home, though it's not really a place as such. It's a view. That across Morecambe Bay and north to the Lakeland hills, a view I've obsessed over since childhood, being brought up in a village only a stones throw from the shores. 

I expect my paintings are some kind of synthesis of all the above, I don't really know. I'm not even sure that it's necessary to know. Literature is for telling the story, art is for telling how the story feels. 

Back at the beginning of time I was a landscape painter, which is easy to understand when you know that I grew up only a stone's throw from the shore at Hest Bank. Later, during six years of college at Eastbourne and Hull I developed a figurative style that I was to pursue for the next two decades; living and working in London, Los Angeles and Marbella, amongst other places. As is often the case, time has brought me full circle, and here I am back where I began; painting landscapes again as I had always expected. 

My response to local landscape is different this time. From representation the work has evolved into a more intuitive manifestation of response. Each painting tends to emerge from the mix of oil paint, pigments, resin and medium in a spontaneous fashion, mostly in spite of my interference.
And not as any location in particular, (though I am deeply connected to the land and seascape of the beaches and tidal bay of my childhood) but more of a reaction to the visual experience of landscape generally and it's transient relationship to light, weight of weather and texture. There is a good deal of the accidental moment about this application and, as reflected in the ephemeral climate of the locale, a decent slice of luck is required for a sunny outcome. 

During a career spanning three and a half decades I have exhibited, or had representation, in the UK, America and Europe; and my paintings hang in numerous private collections, here and internationally. 

My work was recently featured in the international art magazine, Oz-Art. 
In 2010 I became a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Winner of The Lichfield Prize, 2016.