I was born in 1952 and spent my formative years in Richmond in south west London. I had some formal art training but when my interest in painting really got going in the early 1970's I was lucky to know a couple of professional artists who encouraged my fledgling efforts and helped point me in directions that might prove useful. Living within easy striking distance of the west end of London I was able to visit museums and galleries to view the work of artists past and present.

 

Though I experimented with various approaches to painting and from the mid 70's occasionally exhibited work I was becoming interested in a flat and graphic way of picture making. This is still continuing. Some of the artists associated with Pop Art are those I feel closest to in spirit.

 

I sometimes think of myself as an abstract painter who has wandered into and become bewitched by a world of images. Quite often the elements that find their way into my work derive from what might be called the 'Golden Age' of popular culture. Somehow the passage of time has endowed these things with a poetry and presence that I find hard to resist, so if there is at times a nostalgic element to what I do I strive to avoid sentimentality aiming instead for a formal and visual rightness and tightness.

 

After living in the West End of London for many years in 1989 my wife and I decided to experiment with a more rural way of living, we moved to Cornwall and have been here ever since.

 

It is my intention to produce paintings that are positive and uplifting.

 

Julian St.Clair, August 2020.