Peter Rutty

Career and artist’s statement.

CAREER

I studied for five years at Hornsey College of Art and following graduation, began my professional life by working in advertising. After several years I chose to leave advertising to pursue a career in graphic design as I wanted more design satisfaction and greater control over my work.

I formed my own graphic design company which successfully expanded to having designers and artists in both the UK and The Netherlands. After some ten years as the International Art Director (much of it spent in aircraft), I chose to limit my activities to the UK only. The company had major international clients and built a reputation for prestigious corporate literature and illustration as well as audio-visual productions and exhibition design. I designed the principal exhibition for the first United Nations World Congress on the Human Environment which was held in Stockholm. My illustrations, particularly my airbrush illustrations, became one of the characteristics of the company’s style of design. We collected the odd award on the way

It was a full and creatively satisfying career which enabled me to practice as an artist for the whole of my working life.

My painting career overlapped the latter part of my graphics career by some six years and since 1998 when I retired from the world of graphics I have painted intensively. Until recently I have deliberately chosen not to exhibit, as being financially secure, I elected simply to paint until that point came when I felt I wanted to exhibit my work. That point has now arrived.

ARTIST OVERVIEW

My main choice of subject, my passion, is the human figure. While initially being fascinated by the detail of the bone, muscle and skin; my painting is now more concerned with the mass and character of the pose and the figure and the relationship to the immediate environment. I do not view a figure painting as a figure against a background, but rather as a unified whole where all the elements have value; in effect a figure landscape.

While realism is my least concern in a painting, I normally begin with a fairly academic drawing as the basis, to achieve integrity for the starting point. I will then work on

interpretive drawings, sometimes for weeks, with the result that I start the painting with an apparently clear idea of how it will be, but almost immediately creativity takes over

from rationality and the painting develops its own life, altering drastically as it proceeds. It is this aspect of painting which I find the most rewarding.

In my figure and my landscape painting I have strived to make the same approach and interpretation work equally well for both genres.

It is the exploration of a subject which excites me, which is why I frequently return to the same subject, model or pose to interpret them in a different way.

To me a painting requires no explanation, history or background. It is a new thing of itself, part painter, part subject, part paint, part emotion, part intellect. When I paint I hope to convey the excitement and interest I feel for the subject and by my interpretation make it a unique and shared experience with the viewer.

SHOWS

2003. Highgate Gallery.

2004. Royal West of England Academy Exhibition ‘Naked’.

PAINTINGS

Ali resting on her elbow. Price: £1000

Oil on board

24¼ x 24 in

61.5 x 61 cm

Nude in firelight 2. Price: £1400

Oil on board

22¾ x 19¾ in

58.5 x 50 cm

Dinah sleeping 1. Price: £1200

Oil on board

22¼ x 27 in

56.5 x 68.5 cm

Justine with raised leg. Price: £1100

Oil on board

29 x 23 in

73.5 x 58.5 cm

Nude with radiator . 1 Price: £1200

Oil on board

30 x 27 in

76 x 68.5 cm

Teignmouth pier. Price: £1200

Oil on board

26 x 29¼ in

66 x 74.5 cm

Porthcurno beach. Price: £900

Oil on board

23¾ x 23 in

60.5 x 58.5 cm

Hayle beach. Price £1000

Oil on board

25 ½ x 22 in

65 x 55.5 cm

DRAWINGS

Kim standing. Limited edition giclee print of 200. Price £180.00

Pencil on paper

22 ¾ x 15 ½ in

58 x 39 cm

Male nude backview. Limited edition giclee print of 200. Price £180.00

Pencil on paper

17 x 12 in

43 x 31 cm

Peter Rutty

For sales, commissions and to send comments to the artist.