Our Head of Art Luke Baker recently sat down with Little Van Gogh artist Andrew Halliday to discuss his love of plein air painting and the influence Edward Hopper has had on his work.

What inspires you?

I usually find inspiration from drawing and painting directly from my immediate surroundings. For a while, especially during the recent lockdowns, I came to a creative crossroads, my art had somehow stalled. But I knew that by stepping outside with my easel to work plein air I would be rewarded with new ideas and extra focus. I was right, it did!

How has your practice changed over time?

Recently I moved away from oil painting and started with acrylics. It hasn’t been since my student days that I’ve used them, so I was not sure how they would behave. The quality of the paint has improved enormously and has given a more experimental edge to my creative processes, and has opened up more possibilities with mixed media. I’ve started to work again with paper collage and stencil work, the freer approach has created some interesting results.

What’s your favourite artwork?

This is of course a tricky question. There are so many works of art in the world that takes my breath away. However, the Mauritzhaus Museum in The Hague has two Carel Fabritsius’s melancholic yet exquisite ‘The Goldfinch’, and, even more remarkable, Vermeer’s ‘View of Delft’. A cityscape that is just perfection. The still, mirror like waters that reflect the town’s spires and walls, the jewel like clarity of the clouds in the sky. The painting fizzes and shines, it’s textures and tones a thing to behold. Johannes must have been chuffed when he finished that.

Describe a real-life situation that has had a direct impact on your work?

I have been to many memorable exhibitions in my life but none have been so moving or influential as witnessing the Edward Hopper retrospective at Tate Modern. I had been familiar with Hoppers work from seeing so many Athena posters in the 1980s (usually of The Nighthawks) and, although I liked them, I never really took much notice of any other work. But this show totally shocked me, and I realised that Matisse and Picasso didn’t really deserve all the attention. I have found Hopper’s work fascinating, and the complex emotions in his paintings has haunted me ever since.

What’s the best piece of advice you have ever been given? 

I think that the best advice was from my tutor in fine art studies at Bournville School of Art, Terence Clarke. On hearing that I was to head to London for my degree studies he told me to ‘draw the city’ – a simple instruction maybe but it illustrated his view that artists should always take the opportunity to study around them, to fully take in and understand the world close by. As mentioned earlier, direct study is a great way for artists to re-centre and re-evaluate their practice, and Terry’s advice still stands!