About Quinagarts
I am self taught, I try to draw inspiration and gain knowledge from each and every moment, experiences and people I have met. I strive to do this through all aspects of my life. I don’t know where the phrase “when the student is ready the teacher appears” comes from or even when I first heard of it but it is an idea that I have come to reflect on over the years. I try to observe everything! I use all that I see and all that I have come to understand about myself and the world to continually improve and develop as an imaginative artist.
Photography was my first creative passion and I learnt as a child how to read the light and compose an image within a frame. I did put pen to paper, creating images of immense battles, sketched out on paper as my imagination ran away with itself whilst sitting in the back seat of the family car, heading up to the lake district for a weekend away.
I didn’t think I was that interested in art and painting early on in life, yet as I look back, I was. I recall one of my earliest memories. I was mesmerised by a painting by Theodore Major, an artist from Appley Bridge near Wigan where I spent most of my childhood growing up. The painting was dark, red and bold, roses or poppies it didn’t matter which to me, I just loved the colours and how they seemed to flow. The painting was hung in the entrance hall of my primary school, R.L. Hughes in Ashton-in-Makerfield. Then, later on in the junior school, I was part of a lunch time art group and our best efforts were hung collectively in the same entrance hall. Mine was a small still life, an oil pastel of some fruit!
In High School my interest was well and truly based in science, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and primarily Geology. History didn’t interest me in the least, which is something I now regret, I struggled with language and maths. I didn’t feel that I was encouraged during Art classes, being told that my sketches were ‘too sketchy’ whatever that was supposed to mean. Due to this I didn’t think I could draw very well or be a good artist.
After school, I went on to University and ended up with a degree in Hospitality Management. During my time there, my interest in art and creativity was awakened. Perhaps most notably when I sketched a portrait of a friend, himself a brilliant cartoonist who enjoyed using my image in his cartoons. He suggested that drawing and painting was something I should continue and develop, so I did.
As I was studying at Salford I inevitably became interested in Lowry. I found out that Lowry was a contemporary of Theodore Major whose painting I had seen all those years ago at primary school. In an interview on the TV, Theodore Major said that painting was a battle, a sentiment I totally agree with. I also believe that anyone can be creative if they so desire. I have heard many people say they can’t draw but if you can pick up a pencil and make a mark on paper you are creating art and thus the battle begins.
To me, art is anything you see and like, that makes you think or reminds you of something, makes you feel a certain way, or creates an emotional connection. Would I want to hang this painting or drawing on my wall or display an object on a shelf, something I would enjoy looking at every time I pass. I do not use any one style or subject to paint and draw, neither do I have a preference in what media I use, oil, watercolour, acrylic, clay, or pencil. The way you apply colour, lines, shapes and how they can develop into whatever they end up being is what is important. There are no rules or boundaries to what you can create, I use observation and imagination to do so.