This artist won the Artists & Illustrators’ prize at the Chelsea Art Society’s annual exhibition. Sarah Edghill dives in to find out more
D AVID SAWYER STUDIED at the Canterbury College of Art and has worked as a fine artist ever since. As well as having solo exhibitions in numerous private galleries, he has exhibited with the Royal Society of British Artists, the New English Art Club, the Chelsea Art Club and the Royal Institute of Painters. He works from studios in London and southwest France, and describes himself as a Modern British Impressionist, with work ranging from Mediterranean landscapes to urban skylines. Although his main medium is oil, he also uses watercolour to make preparatory studies and explore ideas.
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My parents recognised the importance of art.
They were working class but from a generation that had come through the war and appreciated art and culture, so there were plenty of books and a good set of encyclopaedias whilst mum listened to classical music and dad to his jazz records. I was fortunate that I was encouraged in my decision to study at art school at a time when there were no tuition fees and those of us from working-class backgrounds were eligible for a grant.
My first attempts at painting were of dramatic skies over the sea.
I grew up in Margate on the Kent coast, and Turner considered the sunsets in Margate to be the finest in Europe. When painting a sky, I try to create a sense of depth or recession, so the eye is led back through the picture plane. Although skies can be very abstract in their nature, when starting to paint them it’s important to fix on some kind of arrangement or composition and stick to it, no matter how much everything changes. The painter has to be in control of the painting but also has to be prepared to adapt when working directly from nature.
After leaving art school, I lost my direction.
But after seeing an exhibition of Lucian Freud’s paintings and realising that an artist using traditional techniques of painting directly from observation could still be relevant in the modern art world, it reasserted my interest in figurative painting. These days I’m more interested in architectural and urban subjects.
I paint London because it’s here on my doorstep.
I love the mixture of historic and modern architecture, especially in the City. I am also always happy to be painting around the Mediterranean: the history, culture, the Baroque a
