ARTIST BIO
British-born American artist Jason Pritchard is best known for his seascape oil paintings of New England. He grew up in East Anglia in the UK, a region that inspired British landscape painters such as John Constable and Thomas Gainsborough who he greatly admires.
His father owned a family printing business when growing up, so there was always an abundance of spare paper to hone his drawing skills from an early age. In his 20’s he moved to London and took up watercolor painting, before he moved to New York in 2005 where he studied oil painting at the Art Students League of New York for several years.
Recent accomplishments include being selected as a 2020 Emerging Artist by Cape Cod Art Magazine, acknowledging his growing body of Cape Cod Seascapes paintings. He has exhibited work in New York City, Long Island and his home region of Connecticut. He is a member of Art/Place Gallery in Fairfield, CT where his work is regularly displayed.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I work using the medium of oil to capture atmospheric coastal scenes, which aim to capture a sense of space and connection to the New England region that I love.
I practice en plein air painting for smaller pieces and often use these as preparatory studies for larger paintings combined with photographs that I take while visiting, before completing the final piece in my studio.
It’s important for me to visit the location to access the feeling of what it’s about, in order to help replicate my sense of reaction back onto the canvas. Few things make me happier than taking a nice long walk along a beach, hearing the sound of the tide crashing nearby as I explore both physically, then later in my minds eye, the thoughts of my experience back into my painting.
I embrace the process of unpacking those memories and calibrating the colors, the shifting light and changing weather elements back in my studio. These variables prompt the type of brush movement; hues and tones I enlist which are often wrapped under an impressionistic skyline, intending to heighten the mood of my seascape further.