ROYAL TOURS EXHIBITION   Sale of the week, FT Weekend, Arts, Collecting, 27th November 2007

Royal Tours exhibition was James Hart Dyke's most recent solo exhibition held at John Mitchell Fine Paintings, 44 Old Bond Street, London (December 2007). A selection of paintings can still be viewed at www.johnmitchell.net. The exhibition showed twenty oil paintings and over thirty sketches generated from his recent trips with HRH The Prince of Wales as official artist on the royal tours to Africa and The Gulf States.

To see feature articles on Royal Tours Exhibition in FT Weekend and The Guardian click on newspaper title blocks below. 

       

 

About my painting

 

 

I have always wished for my painting to engage with the world at a level beyond the pedestrian. Painting is a truly physical activity for me, reflecting my own physical association with the environment. Since the age of eight , when I first started painting after seeing a small oil study by John Constable, the landscape has been central to my work. 

During the last seven years I have undertaken arduous painting expeditions into remote areas of the Himalayas and recently I have worked in war zones; Baghdad, Iraq and Helmand, Afghanistan. It is within these environments that I have found the narrative for my work; it is where I have engaged with the reality of the sublime.  

My work is based on the traditions of narrative painting, using fundamental oil on canvas techniques, which I continually strive to ‘perfect’ and to push forward, expanding my vocabulary, allowing me to searching for more elegant and poetic forms of expressions of the real.

 

 

EARLY DAYS AND COUNTRY HOUSE PAINTING

James Hart Dyke’s started painting at the age of eight after seeing a small landscape study by John Constable at The Victoria and Albert Museum, London. In 1992, having finished his studies as an architect at the Royal College of Art, he decided to dedicate his life to his painting. Initially he made his name as a painter of country houses. In 1996 Sotheby's invited Hart Dyke to show his work in a major exhibition The Artist and The Country House from the Fifteenth Century to the Present Day.

HIMALAYAS

Since 2000 Hart Dyke has focused his work on the physically challenging landscapes of the Himalayas which he has visited seven times. His last painting expedition, a three month trip to a remote area of Nepal in 2006, required an eleven man team to carry all the necessary support equipment. He has travelled to Mount Everest three times.

In 2004 Hart Dyke discussed the paintings generated from his travels in the Himalayas with Libby Purves on Midweek, BBC Radio 4.

‘There is a fringe to Brit Art where contemporary British art meets traditional painting. While artist Tracey Emin lay in her bed in London and seasoned her Turner Prise entry a very different British artist scaled a mountain in Nepal, set up his easel, and began painting classical landscapes that have sold like hot cakes in Britain and the US………..The classical approach has won Mr Hart Dyke a remarkable following. He has been commissioned by financial companies, international trusts and notable art collectors, including the Prince of Wales.’ A modern but classical painter, Wall Street Journal Euope, Collecting 6-8/12/03

'he has trekked through difficult terrain, canvases strapped to his back, and overcome altitude sickness to produce painting after painting of snow-drenched mountains and hidden valleys. His is an extreme art..' Extreme painting, The Guardian, 24/11/04

ROYAL TOURS

Hart Dyke has been invited by HRH The Prince of Wales to be the official artist on royal tours to Africa(2006), The Gulf States(2007), The Middle East(2000) and East Asia(1999).

WAR ZONES 

Hart Dyke has worked for the British Forces in Baghdad, Iraq(2006), and Helmand, Afghanistan(2007). His sketch books from the war zones were the subject of a feature article When art goes to war, The Times Newspaper, September 4^th 2007.

 

 

James Hart Dyke is an artist in residence at The Art Academy, situated near Tate Modern, London. 

He is represented by John Mitchell Fine Painting, 44 Old Bond Street, London W1S 4GB www.johnmitchell.net and Beaux Arts, Bath.

 

 

'Hart Dyke's ability to capture the essence of fleeting effects of light …..puts him firmly among the best of British school plein air painters' The Art Newspaper, International Edition, December 2004