|
|
Art in the LanguedocPaul Davison - Biography of the Artist |
 |
| I was born in Leeds, in the north of England, but I have lived in the Languedoc region of southern France since 2001. The map gives some idea of the location of this beautiful area. To be more precise, I live in the Parc, naturel, régional du Haut-Languedoc. The hills and mountains of the High Languedoc lie at the southern most end of the Massif Central before the landscape suddenly flattens out to form the drier, vineyard covered plains that sweep down to the Mediterranean, and the towns of Béziers and Narbonne. The Park, and indeed the whole of the Languedoc itself, offers the artist not only an amazing variety of landscapes but also an ever changing spectacle of colour and light. It's an artist's paradise. I did not specifically move to the Languedoc to paint, but I found it increasingly difficult to resist the urge to paint the wonderful things around me. Although I do not just paint the landscapes of this region, my inspiration is very much drawn from my love of the area - that is why the title of this page is Art in the Languedoc. For me, the two things are inextricably linked. |
|
||
| I had a very nice email recently from a young student doing an art project. He wanted to know if I would recommend a "career" as a painter. This made me think. I don't see painting as a career but as a vocation. Being artistic isn't something that you decide to be - you either have the artistic instinct or you don't. It is something that you feel that you have to do or something inside you suffers. It is a hard road to travel if you don't have this sort of motivation. I have always had the urge to draw and paint. When I was nine I won a finger print kit in a drawing competition in Warlord comic, so I suppose I was either going to become an artist or a policeman! I'm a poor physical specimen with an aversion to authority so my path was set. I didn't study Fine Art at college. I decided to pursue the more practical side of my artistic leanings in the hope that it would make earning a living easier. So between 1984 and 1988 I did courses in Display and Exhibition Design at Jacob Kramer College of Art in Leeds and then Visual Information Design at Sunderland Polytechnic. In practice, this means that I designed and made sculptures, models and interactive mechanical exhibits for exhibitions, museums and industry. Painting was always part of my work, and I continued to paint in watercolours in my spare time, but I suppose that I always dreamed of becoming a full time artist. Then unfortunately my health started to deteriorate. It seemed that all the chemicals that I needed to use in my work were making me much worse. So, to cut a long story short, my wife and I decided to head for a warmer climate to see if this would improve my health. This was the beginning of my path towards becoming a full-time landscape artist and oil painter. |
   some examples of my work for Museums |
|
||
| We both love France and we stumbled across the Orb valley in the Languedoc almost by chance. There are many beautiful parts of France, but this was one of the most beautiful places that we had ever seen. We bought an old wine-making building, loaded our possessions in to a battered old van and towed a caravan from York to the south of France. The caravan was to be our home until we had made the building habitable. Becoming a landscape artist or an oil painter was the furthest thing from my mind for a considerable period of time. We live in a little off-shoot of the Orb valley. We are surrounded by densely wooded hills and abandoned vineyards. Wild boar turn over our land, we have watched an eagle snatch a snake from our garden and, particularly in the spring, the bird song is so loud it feels as if you live in an amplified aviary. It sounds like a cliché, but the air is literally full of the smell of wild thyme, rosemary and mint. It has an effect living somewhere like this. At first you don't notice it, nevertheless, this is total immersion in a sea of life - completely unlike modern urban or suburban living. I am , in theory, an angler. I say "in theory" because I am often to be found by the side of the local rivers, the Orb and the Jaur, in the evening, although seldom with a fish! However, it is in the sitting in meditative stillness by the side of the river that I really feel that I am absorbing the colour, light, smells and sounds of this great canvas, where the very air seems to vibrate with life. I think it is this that somehow reached inside me and, almost when I wasn't looking, rekindled my childhood urge to paint. |
 |
|
||
| I have painted many landscapes of the Yorkshire Dales which are a very beautiful (but a very "managed") part of rural northern England. I had always painted in watercolours with great attention to detail. Perhaps it is something to do with living in this very wild environment, but I felt that I wanted to capture bold light effects and broad sweeps of vibrant colour. I felt drawn to paint in oils, although I had never done so before. It took me some time and experimentation until I began to get the palette and the sense of light and depth that I wanted. If you want to know more about my original artwork and my artistic style then please follow the link here or at the top or bottom of the page. Here, I endeavour to give a flavour of how I work using close up details taken from my paintings, and a feeling of how my work is developing. I am currently very drawn to the villages of the Languedoc. Jumbles of Medieval buildings huddle together on rocky hillsides or seem to loom from the top of high hills. They do not appear "built" but to have grown from the rock on which they sit. They can glower with greys and browns or glow golden or pink, depending on the light. These beautiful old villages are leading me to a new study of form, light and colour - yet another step in my immersion in art in the Languedoc. |
Painting "Le Domaine de Laurel". Please click the image to see finished painting |
| home artist biography contact |
landscapes original artwork site map |
villages buying an oil painting privacy policy |
portraits/people links exchange links |
All images © 2006-2008 All rights reserved Artist Paul Davison email |
