The June 2010 edition of Yorkshire Life magazine covered the emerging new style of Ian Middleton. The article, extending to five colourful pages, adds further fuel to a rapidly expanding awareness of his unique, developing contemporary art work.
The article reads…. Ian Middleton is an artist based in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, and is used to painting for other people. Now he has decided to paint for himself, making what he believes is a refreshing and exciting change in his painting style.
Throughout my artistic life, I have painted for other people and not myself. Understandably, artists dependant upon making a commercial living have mostly very little choice in the matter. In my own case, I have painted in just about every style from realism to outlandish abstract with a large measure of reproduction work thrown in!
‘There is no doubt that this helped enormously in developing my oil painting skills but at the same time it has inhibited my direction. I realised that I wanted only to produce highly original work which at it’s heart would be thought provoking and different.
Today, I feel as if I’m slowly getting there. My real inspiration in art comes from the expressionist period with it’s bright, contrasting colourful works drawing heavily upon emotional aspects. I believe art should grab the viewer’s attention and hold it. The ability to plant an ambiguity and at the same time introduce elements of a story board are now uppermost in my mind when I set out to paint!’
Ian’s emerging style reflects a potent mixture of expressionism, cubism, abstract and even realism, he says ‘I know this all adds up to a colourful chaos but it seems to be working judging by people’s reaction’
An example of Ian’s new style is National Park, which has more than fifty wild life figures many of them concealed or forming dual roles within the composition, says Ian. ‘The large scythe represents our threat to animal extinction with the incongruous man-made road curving out of the jungle as another negative aspect of nature’s imbalance.
