SIMON FLETCHER left school at eighteen and after passing the exam for the Royal Society of Chartered Surveyors decided to study Fine Art.
In 1971 he left the South of England University of the Arts with his Fine Art Diploma and, after a short period working for the Forestry Commission learning about trees, was employed as a landscape draftsman for the Gardenesque Company in Hampshire, England.
Here he honed his skills as a draftsman and produced designs for pottery and iron work in addition to drawing up plans and surveys for garden projects.
In 1975, now living in Oxford with his wife and son, he formed Simon Fletcher Landscape Designers and continued to design while at the same time pursuing a career in Fine Art.
In 1980 he won the first prize for a garden scheme from the British Association of Landscape Industries and had his self portrait accepted for inclusion in the BP Portrait award among 45 other entrants from a submission of over 600.
In 1982, feeling that the UK was too small for his ambition he moved with his family to the Languedoc region of France. Being near to the Spanish border and within a long day's drive from several European countries he was thus able to exhibit more widely as well as discovering a much broader tradition of art.
In particular the German tradition of painting was a deep and lasting influence, and the experience of working in Italy over a longish period fascinating and rewarding.
Simon considers himself a Landscape man and his enduring love of both painting and creating landscape are at the centre of his creativity at a time when it has never been more relevant or important to observe and learn from landscape
J R N
Ravello 5
A new suite of five prints of Ravello, Italy, in a limited edition of ten folios.
Each print is signed, titled and numbered including the folio number.
Printed on 29.7 x 42 cm Somerset radiant white satin coton rag paper, acid free archive quality, the prints are made with UV resistant inks.
The folio costs 1000€ for the five prints and the folio itself is made from cotton rag 350gm paper>
Some of the works which inspired the series can be seen at the Ravello Museum in the Province of Salerno where many were made during the artist's frequent visits.
This offer is limited to ten folios only. To receive one please email Simon Fletcher at movingbrush@gmail.com
Balcony descoration 18x1.1 meters
The images are printed on dibond, aluminium sheets that are water and UV proof
My studio gallery is open for visitors by appointment
Atelier Galerie ouvert sur RDV
+33 623921960
Interview with the painter. https://youtu.be/SOey3zIFHe8
New testimonials SEE WORKSHOPS
2022 CALENDAR -35€ inc P+P (or 30€ from the studio)
SOLD OUT - EPUISER
To order please mail pour commander veuillez email
movingbrush@gmail.com
Below is half of my decoration for a new kitchen . The commissioned designs were printed onto vinyl, washable and non fading.
Sea trees no2, mixed media, paper mounted on board 60x60cm
For sale in UK. Please contact Catherine Milner +44 7770381256
A permanent exhibition of work is on show at
The Art Gallery17 .
movingbrush@gmail.com
Please contact me if you wish to visit the gallery.
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As this catalogue is no longer available there is now a selection of paintings from the Ravello Contemporary Art Centre in the paintings section of the web site
a new series painted in my Moroccan studio.
each 650€ unframed
http://bridgeman-images.com/23OM-4ZP6K-52HD44LZ61/cr.aspx
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Getting inside the painter’s mind
Simon Fletcher is one of the best watercolour painters around. He has spent over 30 years refining his technique, which is a mile away from the British tradition, and closer to that of the Austrian and German expressionists, such as Emil Nolde, Oscar Kokoschka and Karl Schmitt-Rottluff.
When asked, out of the blue, two years ago to produce a mural covering 50 square metres of a wine estate building in southern France, Simon saw it as the opportunity of a lifetime to explore and explode the essence of the watercolourist’s art– literally by blowing up his work.
This is not as easy as it sounds. The essence of watercolour is the transparency of many pigments and the whiteness of the paper illuminating the image from inside. Blowing up a watercolour using traditional enlargement methods tends to reduce the illumination to an insipid greyness.
But with graphic techniques applied by his son Gerry, who works as a graphic designer at the BBC, the intensity of the paint stays the same regardless of the magnification. So the viewer is confronted, not by a sea of pixels, as in a Roy Lichtenstein classic, but by intense brushmarks and contrasts. It is if a giant hand using gallons of paint has been at work. You see the individual atoms of pigment mingled in organised fractal chaos.
For the first time, perhaps, the art of the watercolourist is revealed in amazing detail on the big screen.
Peter and Susan Close, who commissioned the work for Chateau Complazens, their winery near Narbonne, asked for an unusual mural. What they have ended up with is an extraordinary adventure into the possibilities that the digital age offers to watercolour.
The mural will be opened to the public on Saturday June 28th. There is a special press opening on Friday July 4th.
www.camplazens.com +33 (0) 468 453 889
www.simonfletcher.org +33 (0) 467 236 528 +33 (0) 623921960
David Shirreff, formerly with
The Economist helped to organise an exhibition of Simon's work sponsored by The Economist
Travel and work
For years now I've travelled to learn from other painters and places and have been lucky to know some of the truly great painters as well as having the huge pleasure of discovering new places and cultures.
I was invited to write my first book in 1994 and this gave me the opportunity of sharing my pleasure and excitement in some ground breaking painters as well as writing about the new and better paints that have become available over the past thirty years.
Since then I've gone on to write ten books mostly about my own work in watercolour and pastel. Some are still available and you can find a bibliography under the books heading with a short description of each book and how to order them.
"Surely one of the greatest living watercolour painters" R Muller Mehlis writing in The Munchener Mercure
"Simon Fletcher has reinvented pastel painting" Professor W Rupen, Sion, Switzerland