| ULRICH JOHN
WEST was born in Brussels in 1937 and educated in Sussex, India, London and Scotland.
After National Service in the Royal Navy he studied Graphic Design at the Liverpool
College of Art. In 1972 he qualified as a teacher of Mentally Handicapped Adults at Bolton
Institute of Technology. He taught for eight years, after which he resigned his post as
Deputy Manager of an Adult Training Centre in Cheshire to become a self-employed freelance
artist. Ulrich exhibits widely in the North West of England in both one-man and group shows. He has work in the Liverpool University Collection, and also in Wales, Canada, Germany, Spain and Japan. He works from his studio in Ashton-in-Makerfield, Lancashire, England. |
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| To me, painting is about light and space. Landscape and the nude figure are the two most exciting subjects to attempt to capture - both have the same form and one may be seen in the other. One must understand what goes on below the surface in order to see the surface itself and how it works. Man makes his mark on the landscape and the paradox is that there is still beauty to be found within the scars. Learning how to distill the essence of a subject and how to select or reject the essential or inessential parts is of paramount importance. The illusion of space and light which it is possible to create on a two dimensional surface and which may represent a landscape or an idea is simply a distilled pattern of thought communicated by craftsmanship. In some paintings, the recognisable imagery is less important than the spatial aspects created by that imagery. Apparently realistic images are merely a vehicle to explore space and light. Subject matter in these paintings may be entirely irrelevant - and has been used as one might use numbers in mathematics. | |
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