Hugh Webster was born in Harwich, Essex, in 1963 and grew up nearby in Beaumont-cum-Moze. He studied drawing and printmaking under Robin Child at Marlborough College, under Ian Haye and Mike Smee at Colchester Tech and completed a BA Hons Degree at the end of Ed Middleditch's Painting School at Norwich School of Art in 1986. In 1985 he was awarded a David Murray Landscape Studentship by the Royal Academy.
Since then, Hugh has worked full-time as a professional artist. He has held eighteen one-man exhibitions, including four in London and one in Ireland. From 1992 to 1999 he worked part-time as Studio Assistant in Suffiolk to the Australian Painter, Arthur Boyd.
Since 1990, Hugh has been based on the Suffolk and Essex coast, now working from home in Felixstowe. Until recently, his studio was in a converted boatshed on the beach at Felixstowe Ferry Boatyard, from where he ran a drawing and painting class two mornings a week. Here, among the Fishermen, Boatyard workers, Houseboat dwellers, Rod and Line men and Leisure sailors, working mainly in oils, his paintings derive from this Tidal landscape: those people who live and work within it; their stories and myths.
"At best I hope to create a mysterious object that is made up of the synthesis of my experiences and emotions: the colours, forms, line and movement of the landscape, and the natural and human drama that continually change and reshape it."
Increasingly, these paintings have focused on the coastline, constantly under threat from the sea and Man himself.
Why paint?
"I love the 'freedom of expression' that paint offers. My drawings act as the scaffolding on which to wrap my brush strokes. Oil gives me the most freedom, and I have experienced its qualities right back to making the paint on a small industrial scale from pigment and oil for Arthur Boyd. To paint really freely is to release that wild five year-old child from within. Oil paint is wonderfully luscious, rich sensual stuff with stunning depth of colour. It allows a very direct, immediate form of self-expression. It is very versatile, exciting, dangerous, messy, glorious, physical, splashy, slurpy stuff that I immerse myself in, using my hands as much as my brushes."
Since then, Hugh has worked full-time as a professional artist. He has held eighteen one-man exhibitions, including four in London and one in Ireland. From 1992 to 1999 he worked part-time as Studio Assistant in Suffiolk to the Australian Painter, Arthur Boyd.
Since 1990, Hugh has been based on the Suffolk and Essex coast, now working from home in Felixstowe. Until recently, his studio was in a converted boatshed on the beach at Felixstowe Ferry Boatyard, from where he ran a drawing and painting class two mornings a week. Here, among the Fishermen, Boatyard workers, Houseboat dwellers, Rod and Line men and Leisure sailors, working mainly in oils, his paintings derive from this Tidal landscape: those people who live and work within it; their stories and myths.
"At best I hope to create a mysterious object that is made up of the synthesis of my experiences and emotions: the colours, forms, line and movement of the landscape, and the natural and human drama that continually change and reshape it."
Increasingly, these paintings have focused on the coastline, constantly under threat from the sea and Man himself.
Why paint?
"I love the 'freedom of expression' that paint offers. My drawings act as the scaffolding on which to wrap my brush strokes. Oil gives me the most freedom, and I have experienced its qualities right back to making the paint on a small industrial scale from pigment and oil for Arthur Boyd. To paint really freely is to release that wild five year-old child from within. Oil paint is wonderfully luscious, rich sensual stuff with stunning depth of colour. It allows a very direct, immediate form of self-expression. It is very versatile, exciting, dangerous, messy, glorious, physical, splashy, slurpy stuff that I immerse myself in, using my hands as much as my brushes."
©Copyright Hugh Webster. All rights reserved. Hugh Webster, Felixstowe Ferry, Suffolk.
