Leek Arts and Crafts | ||||
| Michael Hadfield of Leek |
CITY LIFE PAINTING   Most people bite their nails or go madly insane when trying to give up smoking. Not Michael Hadfield. Michael decided to take up painting as a way to fight off the need for the smokes. The paintings that Michael produces are based upon City Life, and just by looking up close to his picture can you see all the movement and motions that are taking place. Crowds of little people scatter the painting going about their own unique everyday. From a distance the painting will catch your eye, but up close you start to read into many little story's. And everytime you look at the painting you notice something you didn't notice before. Amazing creative genius work is the only way to describe this latest piece from Michael. Michael started Acrylic painting just 4 months ago and hasn't stopped since. Michael loves what he does in his spare time and as so far produced 8 paintings and is currently working on his 9th piece. Previously Michael had no experience with painting and was amazed at what he produced through trying to give up smoking. Leek as many fine artists and Michael is one of these. In fact Michael is an untapped artist as he only tends to put his pieces on display in his Hair Salon - Toffee Hairdressing. When I asked Michael what inspires him, he replied : Colour is a big inspiration and re-invention into my own interpretation and nature. I liked L.S.Lowry RA, 1887 – 1976, but felt it was a bit gloomy, but I don’t want to associate my work with his. I wanted to work with little people and Skyscrapers as they have so much colour and are interesting for me. If people look, stare and laugh at my work I know I have achieved what I wanted to do. I don’t intend to be totally serious about my work – but I don’t want to be totally out of control either. There as to be some organisation in art, but it doesn’t need to be absolute correct. At the moment Michael as broken away from doing his City Life paintings to try out doing a cross between Aboriginal and North American art. Thus far Michael says that the painting is coming on, and will be on display in the near future in his Hair Salon - Toffee Hairdressing. Michael states that he likes all his paintings to be a little bit on the different side. Michael usually uses little brushes for City Life, and as to yet not used a bigger brush, but for his new aboriginal painting he as got to use a bigger brush. Michael is intending to re-invent the styles of Aboriginal and North American art in this his up and coming piece, which he tells me is going to be based upon a big fish. I personally look forward to seeing this piece when its finished. Most people don't understand how hard it can be to re-invent an art style from another country or time, let alone from 2 countrys within the same painting. If Michael can pull this off he will have accomplished a great deal and will deserve the respect that will come with the completion. You have to wonder what made Michael want to start a painting based upon Aboriginal and North American artwork, well Michael tends to sometimes have problems sleeping, and on one night he decided to go down stairs and watch the usual Open University teaching programmes that run through the night on Terrestrial TV. This particular night had something of interest for Michael, it was about Art. Michael watched it for a while and then the programme started to touch upon North American Art, and then onto Aboriginal Artwork. This got Michaels attention and so Michael decided right then and there that he was going to combine the two. So Michael got out all his gear and started the process of creating his new piece. Most people would not consider painting at 3am in the Morning, but thats what makes Michael and many more creative artists different from the norm. Michael tends to spend on average about 90 hours on each painting. And when looking very close up to the City Life picture you can clearly see this. The detail is only clear when you really look deep into the painting, thats when you realise that Michael as created well over 100 small unique storys on one canvas. And this is what makes the painting so appealing to the eye and the mind. Strange how the colours work, a movement between light, dark, gloomy and happy colours are present, and yet this mad combination doesn't seem to destroy the painting at all, instead it brings the painting alive with activities. I can see with the dark and Gloomy colours this is the inspiration from Lowry creeping in. And the light, happy colours are Michaels personality showing itself through the painting. Michaels overall goal for City Life is to make people feel happy and positive. I believe he's achieved that within this painting. Michaels work may not be everybody's cup of tea, but not everybody as the same tastes and styles. But for the people who like this style of painting, i'm sure they agree that Michael as really captured something really special in this work. If you would like to learn more about Michaels paintings or would like to see them in person, then why not book yourself in for an hair cut at Toffee Hairdressing where Michael will not only tell you more about his artwork, but also he'll cut your hair at the same time. | |||
