GERRY DUDGEON

Born in Darjeeling, India in 1952, Gerry Dudgeon gained a First Class Honours degree in Fine Art from Camberwell School of Art in 1979 and a postgraduate MFA degree from Reading University in 1981. After winning a travelling scholarship to New York from the Slade School of Art, he rented studios in London before moving to the West Country in 1987. From his studio, Gerry works in acrylic on canvas, using memory and sketchbook research to evoke the feeling of the places he has visited. Colour is used to create mood, and symbolic and understated shapes are informally drawn or scratched into the paint surface, referring to architecture and handicrafts. Always beginning with an open-ended and random series of marks, he allows each painting to suggest its own way forward, developing form and structure in an intuitive way without a predetermined outcome.The Dorset paintings explore links between ancient fossil forms in the landscape and the contours of the hills and valleys of West Dorset. Linear marks refer to tracks and pathways across the land but also to rock faults and to the calcite lines found in beach pebbles. Colour is partly derived from the lush green pastures of West Dorset, but also from the earth and limestone rocks, varying from iron-rich oranges and reds through to the blue-greys of the lias beds.Travelling alone through the Atlas mountains of Morocco, he absorbs the atmosphere of the culture - the colours, smells and sounds and, above all, the quality of light. He records these sensations in sketchbook drawings and watercolours, through photography, by keeping a journal and, most importantly, by meeting and conversing with local people to gain a better understanding of their life.He now exhibits widely in southern England, in London and recently in Kuwait and Nantucket, USA. His paintings are held in UK and foreign corporate collections and in the collection at Longleat House, Wiltshire.