About Paul Smith

Painting and the creative process that it involves is a very important and rewarding part of the life of Paul Smith.

To achieve a balance between all the various elements of a finished painting, whether the subject is a landscape, seascape, cityscape or a still life, his goal is to use a technique that minimises unnecessary detail without simplifying too much, and with a lively sense of colour to create a memorable work of art.

“Colour feeds the imagination, and a great painting can create a feeling of happiness and optimism in the viewer and creator alike.”

His chosen medium of Oil on canvas has remained unchanged for more than 35 years the tactile qualities of these materials are perfect, he uses exclusively Windsor and Newton Artist Oil Colour, and the finest quality oil primed Linen from Claessens in Belgium. As with every artist of any generation he has taken inspiration from masters of the past and that his work has been influenced by Sargent, Van Gogh, Kroyer and the impressionists, and of artists of the present such as Hockney and others.

Paul was born in 1948, and he grew up in Hampstead a suburb of London. He can remember even as a young child he could always be found painting and drawing. This passion for painting must have been inherited from his mother who was a floral artist that worked for a studio in Chelsea. Another early memory is walking up Heath Street in Hampstead on a weekend, and looking at the paintings for sale in the open air exhibition by local artists. This exhibition in Hampstead has long since ceased, but thankfully Paul was able to fulfil a long held ambition to exhibit some of his paintings there before it ended in the early 1970's.

Alongside his career as an established and successful artist he has a parallel career as a freelance designer, which has enabled him to travel widely gaining inspiration for his pictures, working in countries such as Germany, Sweden, Japan, France and the UK.

His work has been recently displayed in the following galleries Art Now Gallery Gothenburg, Sweden Nevill Gallery Canterbury, UK Gallerie Gerard Ramboud, St Tropez, Paris France His work has also been published in the International Artist Magazine, and also in the book ‘ 100 Ways to paint a still life', published by Vincent Miller.