Nature's Greatest: Highly recommended Duo Show from the two foremost hyperrealist water colour painters in the world: Adrian Smart & James van Patten!
Plus One Gallery presents the two foremost hyperrealist water colour painters in the world in this spring’s show; Nature’s Greatest!
Though spring has sprung and summer is fast approaching you don’t need to head outside for an oasis of flora and fauna. Instead, head over to Plus One Gallery to marvel in the hyperrealist display of colourful birds and sunshine cascading through the shadows of trees and shrubbery, and light reflected in dark pools of water in the paintings by Adrian Smart and James Van Patten respectively.
Hyperrealism, with all its magnified detail and the artist’s skillful choice of focus is the perfect tool to see uniquely every nuance of nature otherwise lost from a simple casual glance.
James Van Patten, 73, agrees “Though taken from nature, the imagery in my paintings might, at first glance, be unnoticed in the natural world. At best, a throwaway memory. Yet it is the mystery of reflection, shadow and light, and unexpected colour, that makes me want to paint these throwaway scenes.”
For any hyperrealist artist water colour is a challenging medium and to see two true masters of the medium side by side is a chance and a treat not to be missed.
Adrian Smart, 49, explains “Since I was a child I wanted to create very accurate works of art and chose to paint birds for their beauty and the incredible level of detail involved. I was excited by one of John Salt’s water colour paintings and it influenced me to experiment with this tricky and unforgiving medium. I set myself the challenge to bring something new to wildlife art not seen before, something closer to photorealism”.
In the end Adrian surpassed “close” and went all the way to hyperrealism and this is perfectly matched by James. Indeed the paintings in Nature’s Greatest reminds us what hyperrealism can do which the impressionists wanted to but could never quite achieve; perfectly seize a moment and fix it forever.
