Tom Stevenson works in oil and paints from life. His beautifully considered en plein paintings are evocative studies in light, colour and brushwork.

Having painted in recent years across the West Country and beyond in London, Venice and France, Tom’s latest collection focuses on the landscapes and coastlines locally around Devon and Dorset.  ‘Living where we are offers such a range of subjects in all directions.’

Every painting starts with a drawing.  These sketches provide the foundations, finding a balance in the composition that anchors the painting. ‘This structure is vital to begin with.’ In his fluid, original style, Tom explains ‘I find my subjects looking for shapes, form, patterns and colour.  The landscape provides me with all these things.’

‘My work is often a series of repetitive shapes.  Read from left to right they are a sequence of colours.  Like the ribbons above medals.’  With a distinctly light touch, Tom uses carefully chosen watercolour brushes.  Working with the inky, watered-down paint, his characteristic brushwork captures the essence of his subjects.

From the ‘water reflecting off the surface of the beach, like a mirror as the tide goes out,’ to his boats in the harbour and figures in the slipway, Tom creates paintings that are fleeting, spontaneous and redolent of memories common to us all.

Born in 1984, Tom Stevenson trained at the Bath Spa School of Art and Design and graduated from Plymouth University’s Exeter College of Art and Design in 2007 with a BA (Hons) degree in Fine Art. In 2020 Tom became an elected member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI) and an Academician at the South West Academy (SWAc) in 2019.  He won the Winsor & Newton prize in 2016 and Phylis Roberts Award in 2014 and has exhibited with the New English Art Club, Chelsea Arts Society and shown regularly with GrandyArt since 2017.