Gary Holding

I paint directly from the subject either en plein air or in the studio. I love to immerse myself in nature for the hours it takes to paint, removed from everything but the urgency to describe something beautiful, fleeting, and deeply wrapped in the nostalgia of my childhood. I was born in Derbyshire and the countryside was our playground. I try and evoke in my work a sense of realism balanced by the emotion of impressionism: the close quarter immediacy of nature, true radiant colour and the playfulness of light as I see it. All my works are painted in artist quality oils on archival grounds and framed or unframed.

I am self taught having drawn or painted all my life. I am inspired by the realist and impressionist painters of Europe, Russia, America and Australia latter day and current.