About Caron & Gordon Coldwell

Gordon Coldwell 

Background

I am a half-Dutch UK-based artist born in the NE, now living in the SW of England. I was an Art College lecturer and curriculum leader for 20 years, and a college Marketing Manager for 12 years. Following my time spent working in the education sector, I created and managed my own successful marketing business. After 10 years, I closed my business and have been making figurative digital paintings pretty much every day since. I have exhibited and sold work via numerous one-man shows and group exhibitions.

As a teenager, I visited Newcastle University’s Hatton Gallery at least once a week. When I was 16 I saw an exhibition of anti-Nazi photomontages by the German-born artist John Heartfield. My connection with the university led me to discover the work of Victor Pasmore and Richard Hamilton, both former lecturers in the Fine Art Department.

During summer holidays, before going to university, I would stay with my Dutch grandmother in the seaside resort of Scheveningen. Most years a Dutch cousin and I would travel by train and visit art galleries and museums all over Holland. As a result, I fell in love with works by several 17th-century artists from the Dutch Golden Age... and others from the 20th Century De Stijl movement.

Art History lectures at university were called ‘Climate of Ideas’… these sessions led to learning about the Italian Renaissance and Baroque artists such as Caravaggio. I learnt about the DADA movement, Kurt Schwitters and Marcel Duchamp… Pop Art and other artists such as Andy Warhol and Larry Rivers etc. 

Exposure to these disparate artists and their different approaches to making art still influences my approach to and thinking about my work today.

Free Will & Fate – Accidents of Time & Place:

https://howigotjob.com/artist/how-to-become-art-teacher/

Practice

I utilise image manipulation software to make figurative digital paintings. Each work is multi-layered in construction and potential meaning. Compositions are constructed by importing sourced pictorial elements layer by layer then developed and finessed through to completion - the process is analogous to making 3D collages/photomontages.

I often incorporate elements from classic 'Old Master' paintings, re-presenting them in new contexts and relationships. By fusing history with contemporary additions, I work with the iconic and the cultural, merging them to create new narratives. I quote from the art of the past as a means of reinterpreting ways of seeing and thinking that I associate with artists as disparate as: Vermeer, Velasquez, Ingres, Manet, Duchamp, Richard Hamilton and John Heartield etc.

My artworks are, in part, both referential and reverential in their intent rather than simply appropriating or copying from masterworks. My imitation is a sincere form of flattery. In addition to explicit references, some might find humour in my alterations. By leaving out or adding in elements to known works or reconfiguring components within them, much of my work is a visual commentary.

Viewers often recognise 'familiar' elements in my re-imagined compositions. However, seeing them in unexpected and surprising relationships can lead to a reassessment of the original... and a 'Smile in the Mind' in witnessing the new.

Themed Collections: Art About Art & Artists / Neo Pop Art / Evidence of Dreams & Time Travel / Horses / Bird-Headed Surreal / Horses / Clowns / Religion & Culture / Issues / Political Satire etc. 

Limited Edition Prints: My digital paintings are available as unframed (Limited Editions 1/5) Giclee prints on museum quality paper or canvas, and come with a 2" wide all-around blank border. All of my work has the potential to be printed on a large scale e.g. 4' x 4'.

Exhibitions

I have exhibited in one-man and group shows: Worthing Museum & Art Gallery (West Sussex), Ilminster Arts Centre, The Tacchi Morris Centre (Taunton), The Sugar Cube Gallery (Hambridge), The Great Bow Wharf (Langport), Artifex Gallery (Sutton Coldfield), Thelma Hulbert Gallery (Honiton), Black Swan Arts Centre (Frome), The Atkinson Gallery (Millfield), Evolver Cover Exhibitions (Wessex), Bernie Grant Centre (Tottenham), Blue Cedar Printworks Gallery (Glastonbury)… and CICCIC (Creative Innovation Centre, Taunton).

Abbreviated CV - Education and Career

Born Newcastle upon Tyne 1954

Bachelor of Education Hons Degree - Warwick University 1976

Art Teacher - Saintbridge School, Gloucester 1976-78

Art & Design Lecturer - West Sussex College of Design 1979-86

Head of Art, Design & Media - Bridgwater College 1987-1996

Marketing Manager - Bridgwater College 1996 - 2007

Owner of I More Than Brand - Marketing Business 2007-2014

Full-Time artist 2014 - Present