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ABSTRACTION ARTIST
CHRIS WEBB
Chris Webb is an abstraction painter, primarily inspired by his photography and memories walking along the harbour shoreline in Hampshire UK. He also likes to engage with new themes set by galleries and call outs for submissions, but always in his abstraction style. Recently this included the themes; thresholds, the human figure, and city life.
It all began in 2012, when he was best known as urbansketcher. During this early period of his art, he would use ink and watercolours to sketch street scenes 'en plein air' alone. He eventually sought company as well as wanting to encourage the activity of plein air. So he created and organised a local group known as 'Portsmouth & Southsea Sketchers' in 2014.
The next chapter in his art was challenging to say the least. A diagnosis of a chronic eye condition in 2010 would go on to change his art for good, with permanent sight loss by 2016. At this point he was determined to adapt his painting to his eyesight and so a new period of artwork began. During this new period he experimented and started to paint on a larger scale with oils and acrylics indoors. Using brushes and a trowel he worked the paint onto the canvas. He then slowly realised his work was becoming more simplified, as he lost more vision. Although he likes to think of it as more vision for his art and less sight. He self identified his new work as that of an abstraction style.
Chris is registered as partially sighted in both eyes and prefers to not be defined by his sight loss. Although, at the same time realises it is now part of who he is and what he has become and determined that nothing will hold him back.
Chris now uses scrap techniques to sculpt the paint onto the canvas and create a tactile experience as well as a visual one. Today, he has now emerged stronger and determined to exhibit his work once again. Which leads on to the exciting news that he has been selected by the Gonzo Unit to exhibit in Greece this summer.
Life certainly is what you make it.
Exhibitions
2014 'Urban Inks & Watercolours' at Island City Art in Portsmouth UK.
2015 'Under the Spotlight' at Coastguard Studios in Portsmouth UK.
2016 'Minds are Worlds Apart' at Coastguard Studios in Portsmouth UK.
2016 'Nautical Landscapes' SOLO at Southscene in Portsmouth UK.
2018 'Thresholds' at Gonzo Unit in Thessaloniki, Greece.