Trevann Fanthorpe
As a driven young man on a quest for self discovery I left teaching to 'be an artist' in 1973. That decision turned out to be one of the best I ever made and it opened the door for me to follow my passions for drawing, painting and sometimes sculpting - and to travel the world as an artist. After twelve years of adventuring I landed back in England and settled in Dorset with my partner Harriet. Thirty years later we are still here and I am enjoying a new-found freedom in my primary skill, drawing. For many years I wanted to add colour to the black and white drawing style that comes naturally to me, but it didn't happen. Infact I lost interest in drawing and turned my creativity elsewhere for a long time. _________________________________ While Harriet and I were busy buying a house and bringing up our two children, Holly and Ben, I drove a taxi to make a living and spent all my free time making music and learning to play instruments; making sculptures and working on ceramics; building workshops and working with wood. We were busy! Eventually I was very fortunate to be able to 'rescue' myself from decades of mundane working life. Enrolling into an arts based degree course in 2003 brought me back into the healthy and nurturing creative environment I've been lucky enough to enjoy since then. In 2011 I found myself on holiday from work and free to do as I would for the whole summer. I was in a refreshed and relaxed state and enjoying the benefits of a regular meditation practice, so I decided to do what I found simplest and most enjoyable in life - draw - and this time from imagination, not from 'life'. _________________________________ It quickly emerged that this new starting point gave me the freedom to introduce colour into my work by using acrylic inks and then 'developing' the coloured blobs I made on card, using the technical pens I'd always liked. The constant sense of fascination and surprize that I experienced while giving free reign to my imagination - 'finding' what came to look more and more like surreal organic forms in and amongst the simple coloured blobs and brush marks I'd arranged on a white surface - hasn't left me since then. And while the drawings gradually evolve - sometimes looking more like plants in a garden and at other times as if I am looking directly into a cellular universe through the lens of a non-existant microscope - I continue to enjoy hours of peaceful contemplation 'while drawing occurs'! EDUCATION & TRAINING 1966-1969 Teaching Certifcate, Alsager College of Education, Keele 1973-1974 Sculpture, Psychopolis, de Vrie Academie, Den Haag, Nederlands 2003-2006 BA (hons), Arts University, Bournemouth
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: drawingsbytrevann.com