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Anthony Garratt

Canopy

Canopy

oil & acrylic on canvas
90 x 90cm
£4200
Dash

Dash

oil, acrylic & charcoal on canvas
80 x 80cm
£2800
Residency

Residency

oil, spray paint & acrylic on canvas
120 x 150cm
£8500

“My artistic practice is diverse, but rooted in a passion for our relationship with the concept of ‘landscape’. My most recent paintings are energetic, plastic and deliberately over-saturated fictions. They have, in part, evolved out of memories from recent travels but are mostly invented spaces that often include empty, modernist structures sitting within energetic mark making. Alongside these lively and colourful fictions sit paintings that are quieter, more meditative and organic in their approach. This contrast in style echoes a fascination with the idea of ‘contrast in landscape’ and the global polarity of our experiences in the landscape. In an essay about my work, Kate Reeves-Edwards writes, ‘Indeed, the moody expanses, the dramatic chiaroscuro, and the saturated colour palette promote a dualism between the ominous and the exciting. His work quickens the heart rate and fills the viewer with a desire to get out there. Garratt changes his method and materials depending on the subject matter he is portraying.’

Much of my studio time is spent excited by the action of painting; finding marks and devices which are practiced and evolved before committing them to a more resolved solution. It is this experimentation that stimulates change in the work.  My ‘other art hat’ is to conceive and produce large scale, self-initiated public artworks. The public installations are led by a particular subject and evolve out of a passion for collaboration and taking messages to an audience who can ‘encounter’ artwork outdoors. These projects not only inspire and alter my studio practice but also enable the opportunity to work across sectors I wouldn’t usually encounter or collaborate with.

Anthony Garratt was born in 1979 and he lives and works in South Devon .

He studied at Chelsea College of Art for a Foundation (Dip), and a BA (hons) at Falmouth College of Art and he has exhibited extensively in public and commercial galleries, including 20 solo shows to date.

His paintings are held in private and corporate collections internationally and his eclectic, self-initiated public installations have garnered much national press interest. ‘High and Low’ which was commissioned in Snowdonia to communicate the area’s mining heritage, won the ‘Arts and Business Award’ in Wales and featured on national television. ‘To All At Sea’ was featured in both The Guardian and The Spectator as a ‘Top Ten Outdoor Artwork ’. His recent public participation artworks have encouraged hundreds of people to engage with the practice of painting, whilst raising thousands for associated charitable causes. In 2019, following an artist residency with a photographer in South Africa, he established a collaborative project called, ‘Cawston Garratt’ which launched in London and combined the processes of painting and photography.

Since 2014, he has been a tutor and mentor at The Newlyn School of Art, both on short courses and year-long professional practice programmes. He is a member of the Wilderness Art Collective and runs school workshops to encourage a creative relationship with environmental issues and emotional responses to the landscape.

Cornwall Contemporary

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