Dorset born Simon Stooks trained at Shelley Park School of Art in Bournemouth and graduated from Falmouth School of Art in Cornwall.

With successful shows in London and Cornwall behind him, we are delighted to offer collectors a chance to view this exciting new series of work that marks a new phase in this artist’s career.

At the most southerly point on the Lizard in Cornwall, he has found an inexhaustible source of inspiration in the clifftop flowers, manmade structures and the vast expanse of sea, seen from a purpose built studio on the cliff edge. From this studio, he has produced a number of works for this exhibition and for which he feels is his most substantial collection to date.

There is a resonant character to these paintings that cannot help but strike a chord with anyone who feels an affinity with the sea. Simon’s skill is in capturing the atmospheric quality of a place. Through his contemporary and painterly approach, Simon brings to life the interaction between the myriad of colours in the cliff fauna and its relationship with dramatic space.

Part of his continuing development has been influenced by a move to the most south easterly peninsula in Kent with its beach huts, boat huts, big skies, wild fennel and flowers. His new visual horizons have opened up new possibilities in the way the paintings find their edge which has always been very important to his compositional approach.

Whether stunning through a vibrant use of colour or peaceful through the use of dappled light and pale hues, these paintings convey a real understanding of the importance of creating an atmosphere and provoking mood through paint.

“Often working paintings in sets of two, my motivation for the first is predominantly one of intuitive exploration. I have a deep fascination with paint and continue to be attracted by the unbound possibilities exposed through the process of making paintings.

"The colour combinations, brushes and tools I select vary depending on the subject matter, weather conditions and my mood at any one moment. The second painting comes from the need to replicate consciously what I have previously discovered by chance or intuitive accident so as to store it in my expanding painting vocabulary, ready for use when confronted by an impass in some painting not yet started.”