Ben Brotherton graduated from Canterbury with a 1st class BA in Fine Arts in 2002 and an MA in painting in 2004. After 3 years as artist in residence at The King’s School, Canterbury, Ben moved to the Gers Region in south-west France where he now lives with his family in an old farmhouse in Sadeillan and has established the arts school Le Terrain Vallonné.

Since then Ben has built a reputation for his wonderfully atmospheric en plein air landscapes, capturing the beauty of the French countryside and character of life in rural France. More recently Ben has turned his attention to a series of life studies.  Approached in his distinctive bold, colourist style and the ever present influence of his French masters, they are further testament to how his work continues to thrive under French skies.
 
Working directly from his subject, Ben’s carefully considered paintings radiate a tranquility and calmness. Ben explains 'Painting from nature may be my attempt to understand the world; it allows me the opportunity to engage with its constituents. From the infinite chaos of experience a painting might be distilled.’ Inspired by Cézanne, Chardin, Corot, Matisse and Bomberg, his paintings are about the painted surface, space and light. 'I believe Bomberg’s notion of “the spirit in the mass” articulates the tension between the energy invested into the painting by the artist, and the energy resonating from the motif. It is a desire to understand the subject and the subsequent painting.’

Ben has exhibited in London with The Royal Society of Oil Painters and Royal Society of British Artists, was short listed for the Winsor and Newton Young Artist in 2006 and shows work regularly with GrandyArt.

BEN BROTHERTON: ARTIST IN FOCUS