Artist Spotlight: Alan Stones
When did you first want to be an artist?
In 1966/67 whilst failing my A Level Maths and Physics at school in Cheadle, Cheshire I found I couldn’t stay out of the art room. It became obvious that the only subject I could really engage with was Art. So off I went to St. Martin’s School of Art in London to become an artist and painting, drawing and printing is all I’ve done since.
Which artists were your earliest influences?
Looking back I can now see how much of an influence LS Lowry was on me. My granny lived on his patch and, I believe, had come across him. My memories of my visits to see her are from when I was five to eleven years old. My mother and I would sit upstairs on a bus in Salford. The air would be thick with cigarette smoke and I would be coughing the whole journey. I was aware of Lowry’s work through reproductions but it wasn’t until fifty years later that I realised how many of my own themes echoed his.
When did you become an LAS member?
I joined the Lake Artist’s Society in 1998 – along with Martin Greenland.
What inspires your work and approach right now?
A couple of years ago I was invited by Julian Cooper to put on a ‘landscape painting’ exhibition at Heaton Cooper Studio’s Archive Gallery in Grasmere. ‘To the Gate – my daily walk’ is now on and runs until 30th July. When thinking about the subjects of my work in both my painting and my printmaking, they invariably include individuals involved in some kind of endeavour but often in a landscape context. I don’t think of myself as a landscape painter and so this exhibition became a project for me – an opportunity to look at landscape in a different way.
What challenges do you face in the development of your work?
The challenges I face in my work are many and varied though they are probably challenges that could disappear if I had one or two different mind sets. I work full-time as a painter and printmaker. For a long time I have had sufficient outlets for my prints to be both seen and sold. However, this isn’t the case with my paintings . . . and I would like it to be.
I do make work which is varied in both subject and scale, sometimes from life and sometimes away from the subject. I also make work in a number of on-going series and I tend to see these series as not ready to be shown and certainly not to be sold.
More real challenges: My paintings are put together in the studio and are reflected on over time and are built-up layer upon layer. We know things only by their differences and, as much as I can, I want to introduce lots of opposing elements . . . to play-off one thing against another: broad brush marks against delicate ones; opaque paint against translucent paint; flat or quiet areas against detail; light against dark etc etc
What does a day 'in your studio' look like?
Over the last six months, as the date approached for the opening of ‘To the Gate – my daily walk’ a typical ‘day in my studio’ would see me standing painting at my easel from 9am to 9pm – with about four hours off here and there. Now, in June, the exhibition has opened but I have three group exhibitions fast approaching: LAS Summer Exhibition, New Light Art Prize Summer Exhibition near Bradford and Rheged’s 25 year Celebration. So, I’m in the throes of catching-up on things, administration, trips back and forth to the framer’s and a bit of dreaming about new beginnings.
My planned new work is not particularly new. When I began work on ‘To the Gate - my daily walk’ I set aside a very larger version of my ‘Hotel du Monde’ painting and I’m itching to immerse myself back in that. It’ll be a painting of the outside of a ‘hotel’ at night with 36 visible windows and glimpses into the lives of a few individuals.
Do you have any new works or exhibitions planned?
‘To the Gate - my daily walk’ runs from June 12 to July 30 at the Heaton Cooper Studio archive gallery. Open daily from 9am.
Follow Alan on instagram @alanstonesart
