So, who is the artist and what's in this gallery?
..Well, my friends call me "fluffy" Neil, can't think why, and I am a visual artist and muralist from England. I picked up my love of painting while touring India around ten years ago - picked up the nickname about then too. I have spent 18 months in Asia altogether, it's a part of the world I find truly amazing, and my experiences there have influenced me strongly. While travelling the first time, I learnt to listen to my intuition, which urged me to develop my artistic skills and become a painter. I love gorgeous colours as you can probably tell, so I have been on a bit of a mission ever since, to help brighten up England's somewhat grey character, and make a few bob while I'm at it! My leaning has always been towards creative art, and I like to tinker with music too, though my skills with a paint brush are much better than with a guitar (but I'm not bad:) I studied at Chelsea School of Art, and later under the guidance of Omee, a wonderful Indian Painter, and have continued to learn and develop my skills ever since.
I can produce artwork in a wide range of sizes, from very small to very large, and I am skilled using traditional and modern painting mediums, as well as computers.
In this gallery you'll find much of my earlier artwork, as for a while now I have been painting mostly murals, and these murals get a gallery of their own. This art gallery however actually contains some of the older favourite images that I have created, and shows quite clearly how my style and skills have developed over time, as well as revealing many of my influences.
So a career as an artist? Not easy!
..especially as I try to capture a sense of the sacred in most of my work, but that sacred essence doesn't seem to slot into our western culture too easily in these modern times. So I've never been very interested in using my abilities to create corporate advertising, or work within other similar soulless industries, and paid work was sparodic for a long time. Also, the established artworld over here in the UK is a bit of a joke, where people pay enormous sums of money for gimicky art, and the main galleries and critics generally promote art that is based on charisma, or a fashionable idea, rather than any actual talent! Maybe that's a bit harsh, but I worked for a while in Mayfair, London, which has the largest concentration of art galleries anywhere in the UK, my job involved first hand contact with over a hundred art galleries in the area, but so much of the art I saw at that time left me thinking that I could do better.. That was a long time ago now, but the memory of it left me very sceptical of the "fine" art business here in the UK.
It's only recently that I have found an area of work which inspires me, is in demand, and has absolutely nothing to do with Mayfair! Of course I mean mural painting and these days you'll find me painting murals in people's homes and business premises most of the time, which is truly very rewarding work. I think of it as art for real people!
You might like to check out my Mural Gallery if you haven't already...
I lived in Brighton for many years and now I am based on the outskirts of London, though I will be heading back to the south coast again very soon, maybe not to Brighton itself, but nearby. I like the idea of living somewhere in the South Downs.
Most of the paintings I have produced over the years have made it into cyberform, (sadly not all). There are t-shirt designs, framed paintings, murals, fun designs, spiritual art, club backdrops, logos, psychdelia, even a painted wardrobe and yes,
...I like frogs.
Thanks for visiting,
and for reading this far, (are you mad? ..look at the pictures, silly! :)
Neil
