9   THE ART OBSERVER July 2006 Telephone: 01565 634218 marklevy@exhibition-design.biz ARTIST, LYNTON HEMSLEY,TALKS ABOUT HIS WORK AND INFLUENCES By Lynton Hemsley “I CAN’T  remember when I first began to draw. I know that my Grandfather was a keen amateur artist and that I used to sit quietly and watch as he slowly painted scenes from his holidays on the back of plywood or pieces of card, I’m sure that he is the reason that much of my child- hood was spent with a pencil in my hand. I recall that I would sit ‘hunched up’ for hours as I care- fully reproduced superheros from my weekly comic book. One artist in particular was my favourite, I now know his name to be John Romita. Romita’s drawings were always amazingly consistent, even at an early age I remember appreciating that all the figures he drew  had great weight and form. I  find  it very difficult to explain the beauty I see in drawing to someone who has never really drawn, like trying to explain the beauty in a line, I love Piccasso, some of his drawings have the most beautiful ‘quality of line’ that I have ever seen, I’m sure, though, that I first admired this beauty in John Romita’s comic strips. I remember very clearly the first time a painting impressed me. In fact there were two paintings and I saw them both when I was 9 years old. The first was Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National gallery and the second was a portrait of Henry James by John Singer Sargent at the National Portrait Gallery. Sargent’s painting to me looked stunning. It was painted with a real economy of brush strokes, every mark that he made mattered and as well as having great form to the figure the tonal values were perfect. For the last 28 years I have devoured every book on Sargent’s technique that I have been able to find and used up more paint and canvas than I would like to count in the hope that I might eventually achieve something  remotely similar. Recently I visited the ‘Americans in Paris’ exhibition at the National gallery where I was thrilled to see Sargent’s portrait of Carlos Duran. There is so much in this painting that I aspire to in my own work that I couldn’t possibly begin to write it all down, it shows me that Sargent knew how paint worked, the thick black bead of Duran’s pupil that creates its own real reflection of light to the broad brushed  coat or the dashed in fingers that are curled by his side. Sargent’s work has undoubtedly had the greatest influence on my painting. And I love painting, especially in watercolour, I love the fluid lines you can get and the large areas of thick lazy colour. I like to get the tonal range right too which means being bold with the areas that need to be dark. I always spend a long time mixing the colours and very little time actually putting the paint on because I like the finished picture to feel fresh. Monet said that  one should never be afraid of doing a bad painting, I try to take this on board when I paint, being confident and staying bold, for me, is key. More than any other medium watercolour is a series of happy accidents that happen until eventually there is a picture. Recently I have enjoyed painting a series of watercolours of Manchester, there are some magnificent buildings in the city both old and new, China town in particular has been an inspiration, the  bright neon signs sat against old brickwork gives it a great deal of character as well as giving me the chance to use some vibrant colours on top of nice earthy washes.” Lynton Hemsley’s work can be seen in the Summer Exhibition at the Wendy Levy Gallery from 6th July to 26th August 2006