Keith Evans

Biography

I am a largely self taught artist based in Wrexham North Wales. As a younger man I became active in Wrexham art group and exhibited fairly widely in North Wales with some success. In 1980 I decided to retrain as an Art Teacher and after graduation spent the next 20-odd years teaching Drama and English! Such are the vagaries of the British Education System. I never stopped drawing and painting, although I was for many years seduced away by photography. I started serious photography as a support for my sketching but realised that it was actually, in some ways, more difficult to take a good landscape photograph than to paint it. With photography one is stuck with what is there and with the light as it is for one particular hundredth of a second. I worked on the challenge and became a professional photographer as a sideline to my teaching. I provided stock photography to various agencies, shot weddings, portraits and model portfolios; working ever deeper into digital until I realised that I had come full circle. It was now as easy, if not easier to manipulate pictures in computer as on canvas. Hmmm! My interest in Theatre and Drama grew from my time at college and, as well as working in school, I became part of several drama and theatre groups in North East Wales. The most enduring of these has been with Grove Park Theatre in Wrexham where I have been an active member for over 30 years. In addition to acting and directing, I regularly design and paint sets and particularly enjoy painting drop cloths - landscapes 18ft by 24 feet in size. I am now fully retired and able to devote most of my time to my painting and theatre work. My photography now is an adjunct to these interests. I enjoy shooting action shots of rehearsals and publicity shots at the theatre, but mainly, these days, I keep what I call my 'digital sketchbook'. As an avid dog-walker I have become very familiar with the Country Parks and local countryside around Wrexham. I always keep a camera handy and record the changes of season and weather. These photographs form the basis of paintings drawn partly from the images and partly from memory. I feel much happier painting the familiar, places that I know and feel familiar with. Having said that, I regularly rove further afield, taking long weekends or week long breaks in new surroundings. Again, I like to walk the area and develop some 'feeling' for a place before I paint it. My work is held in collections, both private and corporate, in the UK and continental Europe.