About The Artist

My work is principally focused on interpreting and expressing a sense of place. I seek to express the unique quality of places… landscapes, seascapes and townscapes.

I have studied and qualified in Fine Art, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design and I am a fellow of the Landscape Institute. I have always had a love of painting from the very earliest age. I have been fortunate in my career as a Landscape Architect to design and to have had built, four dimensional ‘ Big Art ‘ on a large scale, which have matured over time and have become memorable places, I hope.

There is great satisfaction in seeing people enjoying the environments that I have designed and I have gained a number of national design awards for my work. It is only relatively recently that painting has absorbed me once more and it feels like I have taken a long journey to return to a first love!

More About The Artist

I find painting the most immediate and expressive of all artistic practices. I am drawn to painting mainly landscapes and seascapes, which I believe is rooted in my particular love and understanding of ‘landscape’ in it’s widest sense. In it’s essence, this is the connection between place and people, at a specific time to create a ‘genius loci’ or ‘sense of place’.

I particularly like to work with texture and often use pastes and sometimes apply gold leaf. I almost always use reflective paints in the work to capture and reflect the light. I will usually combine the use of palette knife and soften this with brush work. I remain inspired by the enduring impressionist masters: Turner, Klimt, Monet, Cezanne, Matisse, Pissaro and also the more contemporary Landscape artists Mackintosh, Hitchens, Manrique, Heron, Rae, Iden … and I would describe my paintings as broadly impressionistic.

I am always very pleased to take commissions. If you have an idea in mind for a particular space then please just contact me at pauljbest@aol.com. I would really appreciate any feedback on my work. If you see a painting that you love then please do feel free to make an offer or to message me for any further information. I love to think that people enjoy having the paintings in their homes and this is a big part of the pleasure of offering the work for sale.

Exhibitions

6th -10th August 2019 - Exhibition with Karen Eames 'Natural Perceptions' at the Yellow Edge Gallery, Gosport, Hampshire

20th -28th September 2019 - Exhibition with Rebecca Galbraith ‘Place’ at Spudworks Gallery,
Sway, Hampshire

I now have paintings in collections across the UK and in America, Switzerland and Australia.