Above: Portrait of Sarah Raphael. Nick Garrett
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Faces and the figure have been my source of artistic inspiration since a I was a kid. Nothing gives me more pleasure than discovering the fleeting contours of expression with my brush or pencil. It is an incredibly subtle thing.
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I first showed and sold drawings and painted works aged 15 in a gallery in Dulwich Village. This early success ignited a desire to become successful in fine art.
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But as college wore on I tired of the Euston Road approach and was seduced into the world of design. I still continued to create artworks and sell but it became a shared creative practice with major interior design, sign gilding and typographic projects.
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You are an ‘impressionist’ Nick Garrett…
Sarah Raphael.
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Using software in design has enabled me to integrate design benchmarks in my fine art practice. I can photograph, check and inspect my work at high magnification during it’s progress, a dynamic new process that has allowed me to see how the deftness of the tiniest brush stroke picks up detail and leaves it as a mere yet defining trace on the canvas.
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This is a wonderful insight and has reignited a subtlety in my work. It has allowed me to paint once again as I did in my early career, with a freedom and openness without the need to over paint the image: by design if you like.
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The result is a freshness and liveliness across the picture.
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INFLUENCES
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Many of my favourite artists such as Goya, Picasso, Degas, Manet and Bonnard also allowed this freedom to dominate the plane. I now open my brushwork and allow it to breath – nothing new but when done beautifully creates a ‘dream’ of a painting.
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Great art always owns zest, passion and risk.
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PAINTING THE ESSENCE AND ESSENTIAL
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LIFE IN THE WORKS
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Because portraiture is usually art in a pure observational form, while serving as an important record of identification and memoir, I feel it stands apart in a special way, from landscape or even the figure for example.
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Contact Nick 07960113799
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Gallery
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+44(0)7960113799
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Gorgeous paintings! The movement, light effects, and bold colors are stunning.
This is an especially interesting blog. A job well done!
Thanks Nora, there is a lot of time and consideration in the paintings and planning and pure thinking on yr feet with delivery of the teaching programs… makes life enthralling!!