Some young painters I loved at the ROI Exhibition 2009

As promised earlier this week I said I'll post some of the painters I loved in the Winsor and Newton Young Painters (Under 35) Artists Section at the ROI Exhibition 2009.

1. Yasunobu Shidami
He won the 1st prize in the Winsor and Newton Young Painters Section. He was a year ahead of me while at Heatherleys and he has set new standards and goals for himself since then. He had a masterful self portrait piled with rich thick paint, you'd just need to step back and squint at the piece to appreciate the facial structure and richness of the colour tones. This piece can be seen below in the picture that shows the cross section of the finalists in the Young Painters section.



2. Stephen Teeuw

I first got acquainted with him when we both qualified as wild card regional finalists in an ITV series called "Brush With Fame" in 2005. He uses a limited palette with very expressive strokes. What I love most about his work is the way he keeps the tones down to nothing more than two and works on the edges to unify them.



3. Natalia Avdeeva

Another Heatherley graduate, she had two paintings in the show and they were just a delight to behold. I don't have any images but she is an artist with a keen eye for colour harmony and composition.

4. Chris Jones

I love this piece, "Fathers and sons(fighting Pekins)" and I love it for the sheer drama, motion and imagination that went into the composing and execution of this finely rendered piece. I just discovered this artist in this exhibition.

5. Johnny Morant
His painting can be seen in the image under Eskov Pavel another painter in this post. It is a sort of rush hour scene of "Villiers Street". I love his work, it is fresh and dynamic. Discovered him in this show too.

6. Eskov Pavel

This painter from Russia won two awards with two wonderful winter paintings. I was talking to Olya who was around to receive the awards on Eskovs behalf and she can be seen below with one of the winning paintings "Museum of Art in St Petersburg". In both winning paintings he handled the scenes in the most masterful way. These can easily go wrong if the whites are not right. Another new discovery.



7. Maryam Foroozanfar

I first discovered her paintings in the BP Portrait award some years back. She is a fine "detailist" with the ability to handle very subtle colour shifts. I just love what she does with paint! Her piece " Bathroom " in the show was a melody of greyed yellows, just loved it!


8. David Pilgrim

A fellow blogger and an artist I got acquainted with in the ROI shows as he has been a regular for three or four years running. His piece below won an award in the show and if I wasn't mistaken, it was one of the first ten works to be sold in the show! I love the freshness of his plein air work and his ability to capture subtle changes in light.



9. Micheal Robson

Another discovery from this show. His work resonates with confidence! I asked him where he learnt to paint so confidently outdoors and he said he just has to work that way, as the weather sometimes keeps changing. He won the Phyllis Roberts' award of £2,000 donated to support and encourage young painters.



and Micheal snapped me with my painting too

Adebanji and some of his paintings I

It is always good to look at the painter and their paintings, that is why I am a going to continue my series on a painters and their paintings. But meanwhile I'll just like to keep a reaction going between painters and their paintings, this time it is photos of me. Sometimes people say painters will reveal who they are in their paintings. I am not sure how true that is, but I do know that we surely MAKE A STATEMENT ABOUT WHAT WE LOVE in our paintings. So take a close look at these three shots.

see this painting below here

Painters and their paintings I (ANDREW FESTING), Mixed Media on arches watercolour paper, 10" x 12", 2009

This is the first of a new series of works I'll be producing on painters and their paintings.

Now, because this is based on photos I have taken of these artists- I am leaving it open to you to guess who the artist is.




After someone gets it right then I'll post their name in brackets as part of the title. Only then will I complete the reason why I chose the artist and why I like their paintings and put in a link to their site. If it gets hard I will give clues but not for now.

Happy viewing

This was done with a variety of media consisting of graphite, oil base pencil, watercolour, gouache, Biro, pen all on Arches watercolour paper.

ANDREW FESTING
He is one of my best portrait painters, I love his work because of the vitality, sketch like feeling and looseness of his brushstrokes. He always paints from life and would often finish a painting in 2 sittings. He is the Past President of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.