James Norbury

My paintings are an attempt to capture the beauty of the imperfect, decaying world around us. I find enormous pleasure in the colours and textures of a piece of rusting metal or a peeling wooden door. I don't look to reproduce these images, rather I want to capture the essence of the thing, the play of colours and textures. The work is also heavily influenced by Zen, (a subject close to my heart) and I try to work in a state of empty mind, letting the picture tell me where to go, rather than trying desperately to create a particular image. The majority of my art career has been based around illustration and realism and I have come to realise that it's only when I let the work flow naturally from me, that I truly love the things emerge. ​I work a range of techniques that allow myself, nature and entropy work together on the painting. After all, the subject matters which inspire me are usually made by man and then eroded by weather, pollution and time.