San Fernando Painting

"Lasting impressions that will touch the soul, and move your emotions" Artist website: www.jamesknowles.com My primary goal as an artist is to use my skills and experience to create works of art, in my case this is mostly large oil paintings on canvas. Over the years I have come to realize that I can create lasting impression that touch peoples souls, and move their emotions, this is a wonderful and deeply personal experience, and one that is hard to explain. That people enjoy my work is thrilling, that some are motivated to buy a painting or print is truly wonderful. "All human beings create, some of us however are mad enough to spend all our time being creative". I have always been fascinated with the world around me and motivated to create things, my creative direction has changed and evolved, and is still evolving. I attended Art College in South East England in the late 70's after excelling at art in my early school years. I knew I wanted to use my creative gifts somehow in life, but lacked experience back then. Since those early beginnings I have broadened my horizon, traveling the globe, living, painting, exhibiting, and selling my paintings in Canada, America, Mexico, Spain, and the UK. My subjects have also broadened, and one can see the journey expressed through the work. My early works respond to my formative years as a child, growing up in Kent, the so called "Garden of England". Large floral pieces, nature seen through the eyes of a small child, playing in my English country garden. Those years of innocence have passed and the work has a very different quality now. Although situations have changed, and at times quite dramatically, I can say that my love and desire to paint has remained the same. My passion for, and fascination with life, is strong and expressed in my work, my lack of experience in those early years now replaced with a knowledge and confidence. I am now familiar enough with my materials and tools that I don't need to give them much attention. I am now free to explore my creativity, envisioning and discovering as I paint. My subjects vary, and are often impossible to predict, something I see, feel, or hear, something that stops me in my tracks, that perhaps the rest of the world has missed. I feel that now I achieve a consistent high quality of production that will stand the test of time both in physical and spiritual terms.