Philip Arrand

I am most interested in the tensions of opposites – light/dark, stillness/movement, inner/outer and particularly between abstract/reality.

Educated as an architect, and later as a school teacher, I was taught to draw and to use basic watercolour techniques – otherwise I am generally self taught, particularly in the field of oil painting.

After years of intermittent painting I have begun to paint more seriously over the past four years or so, especially through the encouragement of the Tunbridge Wells Art Society.

I particularly enjoy exploring the polarities and boundaries of things – the endless tensions and interactions between light and dark, the inner and outer worlds in which we live, and most particularly in that place where reality and abstraction meet, and occasionally merge.

I love using colour, possibly from living in Southern Africa as an impressionably teenager, and the texture of materials, and perhaps of poetry, to try to convey the essence of the idea.

Following my open studios last year I was amazed to be invited by the University College of the Creative Arts to participate in the Canterbury Arts Festival in the autumn – and even sold one of my paintings! I have been even more amazed recently to hear that one of my paintings has been “highly commended” in the Artists & Leisure Painter’s Annual Competition at Patchings 2008.

Some originals will be on sale this year at my SEOS event, together with a new selection of professionally prepared prints.
 

33 Chieveley Drive, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, TN2 5HG

Directions:

From town: Forest Road, take 2nd left after Spread Eagle pub. Forest Way, Lambourne Way, Chieveley Drive. From Frant Road: Forest Road, take 3rd right.

Street Map