James Crabb

I am a British artist who has spent most of the last twelve years living in Egypt. I am qualified teacher of Art and this work has supported my art practice and love of travel.

Inspiration:

I feel a strong need to engage with my subconscious in a visual and expressive way as part of an ongoing personal journey. I am inspired by surfaces that shows the effect of time passing, and the experience of being in unfamiliar places. I am very much interested in the nature of the passage of time and how this affects us on different levels as human beings. I am motivated by a sense of duty to comment as an artist about the experience of being a person alive in this world at this time.

Technique:

I collect ephemera. I take photographs and keep journals. I make work in a variety of mixed media. In recent years my principal artistic output has been made using acrylic paint on canvas. I work on the canvas in an upright position. I use various techniques, in particular a palette knife, to convey the idea that the paint is disintegrating over time. My brushwork has been influenced by arabic calligraphy. I have a passion for colour and its emotional quality and I work intuitively with it to attain a balance within my compositions.

A...

1990 – 1993 Chester College of Higher Education: BA Combined Honours Art & History

1995 – 1996 University of Wales Institute Cardiff: PGCE Art & Design