After training in illustration and graphic design, Bristol-based artist Dan Parry-Jones turned to painting and printmaking in 2008. He produces expressive mixed media landscapes that reflect his surroundings, from the gritty, urban environment to the beautiful, expansive coastline, in both the UK and abroad.

Known for his nostalgic beach paintings featuring children at play, Dan's latest work sets screen-printed figures among urban objects such as cars and windows, and against backgrounds of vibrantly-coloured, geometrical shapes. The artist depicts some figures engrossed in their hand-held devices, appearing to communicate, yet alone and alienated. Other figures are lost in thought, frozen in a moment in time, while fragmented chaos reigns around them.

Using acrylics and oils with a textured, impasto technique, Dan produces abstract backgrounds to which he adds screen-printed figurative details such as figures, cars and architecture, and collage elements: fragments of typography or flat colour that complement and contrast with the painted areas.

Dan works from his own photographs to make the screen-printed elements. Once he has taken a photo he is particularly happy with, he often experiments with it in a series of paintings, giving each its own unique background, palette and mood.

Each painting is composed of several layers as the artist scratches, sands, strips back, re-works and re-applies the different media, before finally varnishing the piece to seal it.

Dan’s work is widely exhibited at major art fairs and gallery shows in Europe, Asia and the USA, including solo exhibitions at Adam Gallery in Bath (2017 and 2015), and group shows at the Sarah Wiseman Gallery in Oxford.

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