Paul Alexander Forsey

October 11 1964

1983 - 84 Middlesex Polytechnic, Cat Hill
Foundation Studies in Art and Design

1984 - 88 University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire
BA (Hons) in Fine Art; Painting and Printmaking

1988 - 89 University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire
Postgraduate Certificate in Art and Design Education

A full time artist and designer, I exhibit my paintings regularly and have work in many collections including the Arthur Andersen Art Collection, P and O, the Gyosei International College and a series of 11 works on paper in the Strand Headquarters of Enterprise Oil. I am a past winner of the Farnham Open.

Media used can be various, but there are three converging strands to my work; biblical, abstract, and digital, and there is regularly a lot of cross over between them.

Painting any passage from the Bible is quite challenging as you are essentially trying to be a part of over 2000 years of tradition. Most of the greatest masters that have ever held a brush have painted biblical scenes and they are generally my first reference when beginning a painting. It really is a case of standing on the shoulders of giants.

Working on the Newbury Mosaic, which took 12 months to complete, was a chance to indulge my interest in Byzantine and early Renaissance painting, drawing and mosaic work. The mosaic uses both traditional materials in the form of Venetian glass, in combination with the very latest computer controlled milling and machining technology, and this use of technology continued with a commission to design a large 9 panel stained glass window as Artist in Residence at Newbury International Spring Festival.

Digital work is quite abstract although using words and pictures together. I work on an Apple Macintosh with Photoshop, Illustrator and Painter. Very keen on how words and pictures integrate with each other, digital work often has text as part of the composition.

Abstract work is very colourful and often quite large. I like to use the scale of big oil paintings as a bit of a relief from the relatively small scale of digital and gouache work. They are not planned in advance as each painting tales on a direction of it's own. Recently, words have begun to appear.

In spite of the differing approaches and subject matter, they do have a great deal in common; colour, arrangement of form, how the eye is drawn through the composition and the mixture of planning and chance.

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