About Me
I trained at Southampton CofA before leaving one year prior to the end of the course to take a job as an art director in London. I was keen to take the job as they were hard to come by at the time. I was encouraged to continue my diploma at St Martins CofA in London. I took and passed my DipAD at the end of 1970.
My career as an art director in various advertising agencies continued until 1993 when I started my own business sourcing quality photographs for ad campaigns worldwide.
I have always loved painting and whenever I found the time during a busy and often fraught career I would return to it with enthusiasm.
In 2005 I showed my latest work in my first solo exhibition in Battersea, South London. The success of that show gave me the confidence to concentrate solely on my painting. And as an artist I have continued to progress and my work has now developed a character and look all its own.
I now create abstract painted statements gleaned from places I've enjoyed visiting, events I've attended or moments that have left a strong impression. I use what I remember, what I've recorded in photographs or what I sketched while there and take a mixture of the colours, textures, shapes and the overall mood I saw and then incorporate them into the finished piece.
I believe a lifetime of influences and experiences find their way into my work. It is this, I believe, that gives my work added character. I will have the original key idea for the work on paper and/or in my head, but as the painting develops and is given life it will change so that colours relate and shapes come together to express the correct tone from the original story as it exists in my mind.
A painting will remain unfinished for weeks as I return again and again to confirm that it achieves what I intended.
My work is now priced here, minus gallery mark-ups, so you can buy my work at the best prices. If you want to talk to me, or discuss my work feel free to call me on 0044(0)7710352189, or email me direct on christosharpe@gmail.com.