Archipelago is an exhibition of exciting new paintings by award winning Oxfordshire-based artist Kieran Stiles. From his training at Falmouth School of Art (BA hons Fine Art 1992), Stiles began a life-long love affair with Cornwall and the Scilly Isles, the latter being the inspiration for this exhibition.
Stiles is one of the leading British landscape painters of his generation, committed to pursuing exciting new ways of painting to form a visual language which is beyond conventional realism, allowing for the unexpected with thrilling dynamism.
He spends countless days drawing and painting outside, then finishes the works in his Oxford studio. As he navigates through the senses, rather than painting an exact copy of what he sees, he conveys a world of entrancing wonder through fractured marks, dashes, splashes and innovative painting techniques refined over many years of experimenting. Some works are meditative, others explosive. What they all have in common, is a sense of how the raw charge of nature can affect the imagination in the moment. As he says, “I try to show the extraordinary energy and verve found in nature. Just as a defibrillator can jump-start your heart, an explosive shard of light or violent collision of electric colour can ignite a painting and blow your mind!” It is this rare ability to astonish that makes his work so special. Just as nature surprises us and takes our breath away, his painting has the ability to grasp the viewer in an embrace that allows them to be present in the landscape with him.
