‘An extreme artist’ as he’s known on his website, Philip Gray paints some fantastic paintings. Painting from what seems the top of the world to the very depths of the sea, Philip Gray will go on the most adventurous journeys in the name of art.
Originally from Cork, Ireland, then moving on to Dublin, he says that his love for the sea derives from living in Cork, and his creative and adventurous spirit coming from his mother. Gray paints dramatic and vivid scenes, scenes from across the world from glaciers to shores to rainforests. He seems to have every extreme scene covered.
How did I come about him? Philip Gray was my collision artist in my last project (Collision artist- a random artist added to your work to inspire and help you to differ your journey in your project). Collision artists are picked at random and I’m glad I randomly picked him. At the time of picking him as my next artist I had been studying Monet’s ‘water lilies’- pretty boring and Gray’s artwork really spiced up my own art. Ones in particular were of his pure shores and earth tones collections.
I loved the vivid blues and hues of the pure shores paintings and the technique used in the background of both the earth tones and pure shores collections. I love how the paint is swept across the canvas vertically. This doesn’t create just one solid colour, instead there are a variety of colours appearing in different parts of the painting creating these amazing tones and hues. I love how in one of the paintings of the earth tones collection, it appears to have a greyish background. But then you look again and you see purples, blues, oranges, and browns fade in and out of the painting. The pure shores paintings look like a huge blue/purple scape. It makes me blink a couple of times because the colours are so prominent.
I really wanted to try this technique myself and I experimented with different tools to try and recreate the affect. In the end I used a palette knife to recreate the water in my own work using Philip Gray’s technique. His paintings have really opened my eyes when studying water and I would really recommend everyone to look at his website philipgray.com because his art is so fluid and unique and completely different to what I have seen before.
oil onthe canvas 