I was born in Tyneside but my parents had a cottage in the North Pennines when I was a child. I taught in Tyneside for six years and then in Athens in an International School. I had almost a “Proustian” moment in Athens when I saw a photograph of the lead-mine chimneys above Allendale – all of the memories from childhood came back.

 

When I returned I lived and breathed the North Pennines landscape. It has an austere sort of beauty. I painted in watercolours for years depicting the ever-changing skies and textures of the moorland and then in oils.

 

There has been a sort of reduction process taking place – a sort of minimalism emphasizing that sense of space and stark simplicity of the two elements of sky and land. 

 

Inevitably there are paintings in my studio of various scenes in Greece, Italy and France from my travels to these places. The treatment however is different – from Pelopponese to the Pennines – from North Umbria to Northumbria!

 

I have sold many paintings from my studio and gallery here in Hexham and people have taken them all over this country and various parts of the world.   

Colin Moss

Fine Artist