If I had to say what the deep motivation behind my work is then I would say the beauty and majesty of the great outdoors. The landscape whether urban or rural. This is what inspires me.
A sunset seen even in the rear-view window of my car can suddenly move my heart. And it is this reaction that I try to put into my paintings.
I could show you a photo of myself but a truer portrait of myself is my art. And so I’ll show you a painting of myself, the foolish artist, up on a mountain. I carried all my equipment, even my easel, up this mountain.
I paint in watercolors. It is the least popular medium of painting. And yet I love to paint in watercolors. It is a quixotic medium that keeps you always on the seat of your pants, that is extremely responsive and can produce paintings that almost seem to glow with life and mystery.
Although I am originally from England, I’ve lived in Japan for twenty years and have for most of that time been travelling around the countryside here look for beautiful scenes to paint.
I’ve studied architecture and graphic design. And I’ve also been to many watercolor lessons and read many books and watched many DVDs on watercolor painting.
But the most important period of my training was what I call my wilderness years when I spent about 5 or more years just constantly travelling into the Japanese countryside looking for beautiful scenes to paint – but often with disappointment.
Only slowly did I begin to find beautiful places to paint and to start painting beautiful pictures – but it was so slow.
One of the most inspiring places I find was a placed called Sasebo in Nagasaki. The exotic and beautiful shape of the islands here really moved me and although I only visited this place one time for about one day, I have probably painted about a hundred paintings of this place.
After the wilderness period I started moving back into society and started to sell my work in a gallery and to do exhibitions. I’ve sold over 40 paintings now. And last year I even won an art contest from a Japanese bank called Howa who put my painting on their calendar.
But it hasn’t been easy. And recently I started to feel that my art was just an indulgence and I felt like giving up. But it is hard to give up completely. The desire to create and to make beautiful works of art, as well as the joy of watercolor, keeps throbbing inside of me and pushing me on and something, is it a voice of truth or a deceptive lie, tells me that it matters.
Anyway, I continue for now.
And this is the story so far,
Gareth.