BIOGRAPHY “Lawrence Coulson generously gives us what we like and need, those feelings of solitude and escape in wide open spaces under heavens so high they might reach to the edge of the universe.” These are the opening words of art critic David Lee following a critique of my work in 2013, one of the most important moments in my thirty years as a painter, and one of the most thrilling. He has captured the essence of my work completely and goes on to compare my work to the great masters such as Turner and Constable that have long had such an influence on me. Drawing and painting was central to my life as a child, growing up in a world of painting, my father being the acclaimed artist Gerald Coulson, and my love of cars dictating constant sketching of these. During later childhood it was indeed my ambition to be a car designer, something that never came to fruition. Upon leaving school with little academic success (my art ‘O’ level was graded at D) I fell into a succession of retail positions forgetting any artistic aspirations. It wasn’t until around 1983 that, following encouragement from my father, I tried my hand at oil painting, him setting me the exercise of copying Victorian landscape paintings from old Sotheby’s auction catalogues. So pleased was I with the results, that I took the opportunity to hang a couple in a pub we drank in, at £30.00 each. A week later both had sold, and my journey had begun. Local success in galleries around my home town of Cambridge followed, and then further afield, as I slowly began to build both a technique and a reputation. In 1996 I was given the chance to use a restaurant owned by a friend as an
exhibition space for an evening. I worked hard to produce around twenty paintings, had them framed as beautifully as I could afford, and took the opportunity of inviting Paul Green, now one of the countries most influential figures in the art world. To my delight, not only did he attend, but he purchased most of the paintings. After a year of supplying Paul’s Halcyon Gallery I made the jump into full time painting and - two years later - a deal was struck with his business partner Glyn Washington and my publishing career commenced. I was lucky to win industry awards in 2002 and 2003, and I am currently Washington Green’s longest serving artist. My landscape paintings focus on the atmosphere of particular locations rather than the geographical characteristics. I am interested in what they make the viewer feel, what they can draw out of the painting. Collectors in the past have employed wonderful phrases to describe the work, ranging from ‘escapist’ to ‘romantic’ to ‘melancholy’, all of which pretty much grasp what I am trying to achieve. Growing up and still living in East Anglia to this day has given me an appreciation for our huge open skies and the dramatic light that they can portray, as well as a very British obsession with the weather. I now possess a small cottage near the North Norfolk coast; an area for which I have a deep love, and has been the backbone of artistic reference for most of my career. My future lies in the constant struggle to refine the work while absorbing more of the beautiful landscape that surrounds us. I will always refer back to the old masters, be they British, French, Dutch or American. They got it right two hundred years ago, and I still have much to learn.
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