GEORGE IRVINE

Contemporary British Artist
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Painting, Fine Art Photography, Sculpture & Print Making

The pressure, the speed and energy of a brushstroke or any sort of applied mark is the second most frustratingly out of reach yet important aspect of pursuit in my work. My aim is to make a work that will evolve with you and your life and not remain static. Although it is usually nature that is the starting point, the subject of a painting, photograph or print is becoming less important and capturing that elusive “essence”, that moves us, is what my work is increasingly prioritising.

Fine Art Edition Prints

Isle of Wight Collection

Last Summer 2016, I spent five days working on the Isle of Wight. Brook Beach, on the West of the Island felt like an oasis of calm, despite looking into one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. I bumped into an old friend in Seaview who’s father had the perfect and surely best view across the channel to the mainland. I spent most of the time painting from their balcony, taking in the wonderful mix of traditional Seaview dinghies (made of elm) that shone in the sun, to ferries, cargo ships and oil tankers

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The Highlands

These three paintings were started at Glen Etive in October 2015 by kind permission of the Fleming family. My dear Dad was gravely ill at the time and the trip was cut short as I had to rush south to be with him. To me, this series captures some sort of romantic spiritual power that this dramatic landscape so often resonates.

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Exmoor Prints

I made two oil paintings of Exmoor last summer 2016. We witnessed wall to wall sunshine that was rare for Exmoor as the locals kept saying. Stags, wild ponies, valleys and moors.. what a place!

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Cotswold Landscapes

Despite having lived in this landscape all my life, it keeps on pulling me in. Spring is very much the theme of the Lyneham and Stow on the Wold paintings where I hope you will enjoy living with that incredible unique English ‘nature transition’. Occasionally we get a heat wave and the Great Tew painting could almost take you to Provence. All these paintings were made in the landscape and are visual notes on a series of happenings throughout the day

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Painting

When painting, I work within a variety of genres including Still Life, Landscape and the Figure. Painting is also a vehicle for me to explore more abstract qualities although I would say there is an unescapable thread back to realism however abstracted a work becomes. I use a range of painting mediums including oil, acrylic, watercolour, gouache, ink, collage and mixed media. I also treat the camera (see Fine Art photography section on website) as a tool for painting. On the whole my largest paintings are made in my studio although when Landscape is the subject, the priority is to work within it. Making ones own canvas or preparing a ground was something encouraged and taught in the first year at Art School. I still regard this as an important part of the creative process.
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Commission a Work of Art

Clarity of communication between client and Artist is essential to this interesting collaboration. Finding a site, view or subject is of course the collaborative part. I try and work out the best option possible for the space the work is to be placed; in terms of size, colour and medium. Prices are based on size, location, medium and past experience. I can work from photographs and sketches if the commission is for a very large work.

Fine Art Photography

I am often exploring the same qualities in a photograph as I would with a painting. Chance, light, movement and colour are all words that come to mind. Finding something remarkable in the everyday or overlooked is an ongoing project. I have recently been using photoshop to layer photographs in order to evoke ambiguous qualities. I have recently been experimenting with the ephemeral character of sunlight, condensation  and brush marks. It has been a revelation to be using ‘Genesis Imaging’ in London who are printing editions for my recent work. These include acrylic face mount, giclee prints on archival paper and the Chromaluxe process. Editions are 1/5 or 1/10 depending on the image.

Sculpture

Through my time spent teaching, an interest in ‘the object in Art’ developed because I made and encouraged students to build a range of Still Life set ups. Eventually the more traditional set ups made that transition into ‘installations’ that could be interpreted as sculpture or works of Art in their own right. I began to question the idea of setting something up and then making a photograph or a painting of it. What could it add? Had the group of objects actually begun to occupy the realms of sculpture? It is an area I continue to admire and explore. With the help of the sculptor and friend, Hamish Mackie, I constructed of an armature. This enabled me to work on a clay sculpture back in my studio that was based on drawings of my Father’s hand during his final hours of life. Hamish kindly set up a meeting at Lockbund foundry near Banbury and they have made 3 bronzes from the cast. I look forward to making another sculpture.
print by George Irvine

Printmaking

Since secondary School I have worked with lithography as well as traditional etching techniques such as drypoint, aquatint and using acid to bite the mark into the metal plate. However whilst working in the Art Department at Stowe School we introduced a safer and more technological approach to printmaking that involves etching into a Solar Plate (photopolmer) using natural sunlight or an ultra violet lightbox. A brilliant course directed by Susie Turner reignited my interest in ‘photo-etching’ and I am about to set up my own print space in the studio. I have several framed etchings available for sale.

Fine Art Edition Prints

With print technology now so precise, a reproduction based on a scan or a photograph of a painting, printed on Archival paper can demand a degree of hard looking to ascertain originality. It has been great to work with ‘Genesis Imaging’ in London to produce such fantastic colour matching for the new series of prints. These can be bought directly from the website. Prints are limited editions 1/50 and available size A1 or A2 to include image and cotton white border. All printed on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Smooth Fine Art Paper 305gsm 100% cotton white.

Equally happy working in the landscape with a canvas tied to the side of his wife’s horse lorry, or lying on the ground photographing the reflection in a puddle. Printmaking at the Curwen Press Cambridge or recently making a bronze sculpture, George seems to take an interdisciplinary approach to his work. Recent experiments with Photoshop and the fusing together of painted, drawn and photographic elements seem like an opening well worth pursuing.

Mark Dickens
Contemporary British Artist

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