Chilling at the Ocean Bar : Paul Amey transports us to the beautiful mediterranean coast and azure seas....

Medium holds no boundaries for Paul Amey He is both painter and sculptor of forty years. His focus in recent years has been painting, his horizons spanning from the beauty and discipline of the Academy, embracing Matisse and Bonnard, to the intense Mediterranean palette and contrasting meditative quiet of Craigie Aitchison.

Master painters invariably speak of light and colour, and Amey has mastered both : light and colour ignite his paintings. His palette is joyous, unexpected, and sculpture, perfected over decades, informs his exploration of space. Narrative is very much at the heart of his compositions. His work is profoundly competent, deceptively ‘easy on the page’, so that we find ourselves transported, chilling at an Ocean Bar, looking out over azure seas ….

Amey’s Table Top Series invite us to rediscover still life where commonplace objects are brought to life, whether glorious roses, or discarded shopping bags. They are all divas on the canvas and he lauds them equally. His figures simply complement the main event. As with Bonnard, we come upon them as an ‘aside’ - they are quiet, caught in reflection. The detritus of the everyday commands centre stage.

Paul Amey graduated in Fine Art from Hornsey College of Art in 1979. He has been painting and sculpting for forty years plus. He set up the Chiltern Sculpture Trail in 1990 and taught Fine Art for many years. He exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford (now Modern Art Oxford) and museums and galleries in London and Amsterdam, New York and Los Angeles with sculpture and paintings placed in public and private collections.
Text Jenny Blyth 2021