After a highly successful career teaching Art and Design in South Manchester, Neil Johnson returned to Wales in 2007 to concentrate on his own work and ideas.

Neil is a member of the Royal Watercolour Society of Wales, a founder member of Borth Arts, a member of the Room 103 group, a committee member at Mid Wales Arts and a trustee of the climate change charity Art+Science. He has exhibited throughout Britain and internationally, including solo shows at the Museum of Modern Art Wales and Aberystwyth Arts Centre.

‘In recalling a place or time we rarely remember a single image from a specific viewpoint. My work attempts to give a sense of ‘passing through’ a place or time: sometimes it is rhythmic and harmonious, sometimes discordant and disturbing. The subject matter is drawn from observation, imagination, memory and, where necessary, secondary sources.

Some of my recent work has become considerably more intuitive, where an idea leads to a dialogue between artist and composition and therefore no longer requires as much detailed planning.’

Influences include David Hockney’s Joiner Photography, Cubism, Futurism and Vorticism, plus Bauhaus artists Feininger and Itten. More recently the work of Minoru Nomata, David Blackburn and Robert Davies has also been influential.

All my recent work is in the transparent medium of watercolour, using no black or white paint. While my method is conventional, my subject matter is not.

www.neiljohnsonart.com