Paul Cunningham

I’ve been an artist for most of my life, painting and drawing most days (particularly in recent years) and spending a not inconsiderable time studying art and art history which, to some extent, informs my work. Sometimes impressionistic, sometimes abstract, I mainly do portraits, landscapes and seascapes using acrylic and oils. I am a skilled drawer yet I find drawing often to be the toughest element to produce in a painting, particularly in figurative work. I think hard about each painting, contemplating its virtues and defects and debating with myself where to take it next. I often finish, then re-finish paintings several times over. Each artwork must be well composed and a unified whole in that both the drawing and the method of rendering the paint are consistent over the entire board or canvas. The colours must work with each other and, of course, the painting needs to be pleasing to my eye. That, in essence, is what my stuff seeks to achieve.