STONEY PARSONS

I am a contemporary landscape painter, my work is semi-abstract.

When I work I am painting what I see, what I feel and my reaction to it. I paint the countryside that I visit and the local landscape, often the Wiltshire downs near my studio. My paintings evoke their feeling of space, the big skies and oxygen to breathe, the space between land and sky, between earth and heaven, between thoughts and feelings, observation and the unconscious.

I use acrylic paint on canvas or wooden panels in my Somerset studio. Sometimes I work from photographs that I take on my walks, always with my paintings in mind either as reference or composed to paint from more directly.

Increasingly I am incorporating designed elements to my paintings as they add a feeling of control and act as a foil to the freer abstract painted passages. They come from when I was a professional stained glass artist and this has influenced my work in the areas of colour, design and light.

I start with an intention but then the painting evolves like a dance between risk and control, between letting go and seeing what the paint does on it’s own and conscious decisions to rein it back in.

I love water and love painting it as it reflects light and silhouettes the trees. A small stream will attract the eye in a wide view. I even like to get in it and often swim in the river if I get a chance as long as it’s not too cold!

Painting is a solitary mission and being able to share it is wonderful, either by showing my art and engaging with people then or through teaching classes. It makes a full circle when I share my studio with students and teach my new Towards Abstraction classes delving into how to move from realism towards abstraction a subject I grapple with nearly every day.