James Lynch

We are delighted to announce an exhibition of paintings by James Lynch in the Ground Floor gallery here at Sladers Yard. James is the first of the five artists in our celebration of the glorious English rural landscape, each of whom is admired by collectors across the world for their own thrilling, richly developed style. James Lynch’s paintings capture the breathtaking beauty of the West Country where glowing shafts of sunlight shine between clouds onto rolling fields and trees. James’s restrained palette and the combination of delicacy and strength in his painting, reveal a unique affinity with the natural world.

JAMES LYNCH’s love for the West Country landscape pours out in his paintings. The shapes of hills and valleys, winding hedgerows, orchards and beaches combine with glorious skies in paintings of wonder and delight. James is a keen paraglider and has flown all his life. His parents flew gliders, again harnessing the wind. Many of his paintings are inspired by flights above Somerset, Wiltshire and Dorset, giving an unusual bird’s eye view of the landscape and a particular awareness of the forms of the land and clouds. In his compositions, earth and sky interact, echoing and highlighting each other. Traces left by man on the landscape anchor James’s paintings firmly in the present day. His ability to capture the timeless sense of this landscape places them in the poetic English tradition of Samuel Palmer, John Minton and Eric Ravilious.

James Lynch grew up in Devizes. As a child he had a vivid visual memory and was always drawing his surroundings with meticulous detail. Self-taught, he has been painting professionally since he was nineteen and for the past twenty years has worked in egg tempera, evolving his own style from techniques in ancient Renaissance manuals. He cooks traditional gesso for his panels and mixes home-grown egg yolks with ground pigments for his paint. Egg tempera paintings are built up in fine translucent glazes. James’s masterly control of this long and subtle process gives his paintings their glowing jewel-like quality.

James is a highly regarded, widely collected artist. He had early success with a prize at the Royal Academy, an award from the Spectator and a bursary from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation. Eminent collectors of his work include The National Trust, Hoares Bank and the South-West Heritage Trust. He has illustrated a Folio edition of The Wind in the Willows and there are two publications of his work: Skylines, paintings by James Lynch with poems; and There Never Was a Finer Day, paintings by James Lynch with poems by Edward Thomas. He has shown regularly with Jonathan Cooper and more recently with the Portland Gallery in London.