Ouverture, 2018

Brian Bartlett   Emerging artists

Brian obtained a B.A. in Fine Art at Portsmouth. Subsequently he was awarded a travel scholarship to the USA, where he gained his master's degree at the University of Eastern Illinois. On his return to England, he lived in London where he painted and exhibited. He has had many exhibitions and his paintings are in collections that are as far afield as New Zealand and the U.S.A. He now lives and works by the sea in Kent. 

Brian said 'My work is influenced by my love of painting. In particular Post War British and American Abstraction. I start a piece of work by applying paint at random. Initially the painting itself dictates its own direction, until form evolves, and a painting is 'born'. Quite often, this might be of an image remembered, it might be a landscape, an interior or a still-life. As I paint, I try to reduce and simplify the image to capture and convey the mood or atmosphere it created.' 

The vigorous compositions of colour and light that result from this approach, create a very real sense of space. Brian's paintings can be seen as celebrations of colour which are both decorative and sensual. Colours glow and sing with a vibrancy and sensuality that become expressions of the joy of life.