David Atkins

My paintings are about experiencing and responding to the places I encounter. This is often achieved by spending periods of time in a landscape and looking and working directly from it. During the course of a painting many things change. First responses and ideas are superseded as I witness the landscape transforming under different lighting and weather conditions. Greater freedom and confidence grows with the time and experience spent in it. As I try to capture these elements, I do so in a way that allows paint and colour to be used in an expressive and gestural manner. My recent paintings reflect the changing qualities of light and weather and say something of the grandeur and beauty I experienced in the various places I visited.

David Atkins was born in Greenwich, London in 1964.  He studied painting at St Martins School of Art, London and Winchester School of Art gaining a 1st Class Honours Degree in painting.

After leaving college he returned to London, where he taught part time and continued painting. He exhibits regularly throughout the UK and in 1999 began showing at the Albemarle Gallery in London, with his first solo show in 2002. He has been awarded numerous prizes including the Horan prize for Painting at the NEAC Exhibition in London and the Façade International Prize for Painting at the Discerning Eye Exhibition in London. He was recently awarded the Baltic Exchange Prize 2018 for painting in the RMSA Exhibition at the Mall Galleries London.

He now lives and works in Dorset.UK

 

‘David Atkins has established himself as an evocative painter of landscapes and, particularly, of the urban scene. His is a broad brush, the sweep and colour of it bold and clear, and he brings to the city the eye for transitory light and temperature and atmosphere that is more usually applied to rural landscape. With him we explore cities, not always in the bright clear Kodak light of the Canaletto imitator, but at dawn and sunset and often in the damp truth of autumn and the tenebrous contrasts of the street at night; his is the sometimes sceptical eye of the honest observer, seeing London and Dublin, New York and Barcelona, as we have all experienced them’.

Brian Sewell (1931-2015), Art Critic

 

1982-1983       St Martins School of Art, London.  Foundation Course

1983-1986       Winchester School of Art (BA Fine Art Honors Degree, First Class: Painting)

1993-1995       PGCE Post Compulsory Education.

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SOLO EXHIBITIONS

 

2018               'Light of Day' Campden Gallery, Gloucestershire. ‘All Weathers’ McAllister Thomas Gallery Surrey.

2017                Ashdown and Beyond Fairfax Gallery Tunbridge Wells

                       Rivers, Rocks and Mountains McAllister Thomas Gallery

2016                Land, Sea and Sky Campden Gallery, Gloucestershire.

                        Fairfax Gallery, Norfolk

                         McAllister Thomas Gallery, Surrey

2015                ‘A Slight Chance of Rain’. Campden Gallery, Gloucestershire.

                        Shared Journey’s  McAllister Thomas Gallery,Surrey                 

2014                ‘Weather and Light. On a Journey with Turner’, Campden Gallery, Gloucestershire                            

                        McAllister Thomas Gallery, Surrey

                        Fairfax Gallery, Norfolk

2013                ‘London Life’, Albemarle Gallery, London

‘Under English Skies’, Campden Gallery, Gloucestershire

                        ‘Devon and Cornwall’, McAllister Thomas Gallery

2012                McAllister Thomas Gallery, Surrey

                        Fairfax Gallery, Tunbridge Wells

                        Red Rag Gallery, Bath

2011                ‘A Journey in Two Cities’, Campden Gallery

                         McAllister Thomas Gallery, Surrey

                        Fairfax Gallery, Norfolk

2010                ‘Venice’ Albemarle Gallery, London

                        Fairfax Gallery, Tunbridge Wells

2009                ‘Land and City Light’, Campden Gallery, Gloucestershire

                        Fairfax Gallery, Norfolk

                        Sarah Wiseman Gallery, Oxford

2008                Albemarle Gallery, London

2007                Fairfax Gallery, Norfolk

2006                Albemarle Gallery, London

2005                Stables Gallery, Northern Ireland          

                        Fairfax Gallery, Norfolk

2004                Albemarle Gallery, London

2003                Fairfax Gallery, Tunbridge Wells

                        Fairfax Gallery, Norfolk

2002                Albemarle Gallery, London

2001                The White Gallery,  Brighton

1991                Tall House Gallery, London

 

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

 

2018 RMSA Exhibition Mall Galleries London

ROI Exhibition Mall Galleries London

2016 Sladers Yard Dorset

2015                Anniversary Exhibiiton. Fairfax Gallery, Tunbridge Wells

Paintings of Oxford Campden Gallery, Gloucestershire.

2013                The Art of Making. Bournemouth University

2012                ‘AQUEOUS’. Albemarle Gallery . London

                        Courcoux and Courcoux, Hampshire

1994- 2011       ‘Site Unseen’,  Olympic Delivery Authority London

                         McAllister Thomas Gallery, Surrey

                        Red Rag Gallery, Bath

                        Albany Gallery, Cardiff

                        Courcoux and Courcoux, Hampshire

                        Fairfax Gallery. Tunbridge Wells

                        Sarah Wiseman Gallery, Oxford

                        Beaux Arts, Bath

                        Campden Gallery, Gloucester

                        Stables Gallery Ireland

                       Laing Landscape Exhibition, London,

                       Landmark. A Survey of British Landscape Painting, Bournemouth University

                       Offer Waterman Fine Art London