Paul Barrand
I'm from Sheffield but have lived and worked in Leicester since the early 80s. I've been in numerous solo and group exhibitions across the UK including the John Moores Painting Prize (Liverpool) and Threadneedle Prize (London). Locally, I won the Cank Street Gallery Open and was shortlisted for the Attenborough Prize in Open 29. My work is in a lot of private collections and a couple of public ones.
LE Confidential
The business of writing about your own work, the artist's statement, is a dangerous pursuit where often the ship of clarity and simplicity hits the iceberg of waffling pretension. So I'll keep this brief. And yes, I am aware that the ship/iceberg thing probably seems pretentious anyway.
The title LE Confidential came from riffing on the dark and multi-facetted James Ellroy novel/film, As I'm interested in making paintings that evoke mood and atmosphere, through the effects of light and composition, that look to be part of an ongoing narrative, rather than a topographical record of a specific place, it seemed appropriate.
Everybody sees the world in their own unique way through the prism of whatever is going on in their lives and minds up to and at a given moment. This means any scene or view can be emblematic or iconic or take on a personal significance certainly in a more unique and nuanced way than say, another view of a well known landmark/beauty spot.