Brendan Neiland

Brendan Neiland was keeper of The Royal Academy Schools for two years and enjoys continued success as a painter and printmaker. His subject is the cityscape, an environment Brendan feels is rich in potentiality and yet often neglected. Brendan sites the work of Fernand Leger who was the first artist to use the awkward contemporary environment as a key to inspiration. Brendan's paintings are both figurative relating to the city and abstract in their structure reflection of light and modulated colour. Technique is fundamental to Brendan's work which ensures a fusion of method and imagery. His research leads to a series of drawings that formulate and define the imagery. These drawings then become the templates or masks through which the paintings are sprayed. In this way Brendan can build layers of glazing an uninterrupted surface save for changes in hue tone and structure. During his extensive travels around Europe Brendan has studied closely the interiors of Vermeer in Amsterdam the extravagance of Gaudi in Barcelona as well as the black intensity of Goya in Madrid. These influences together with a preoccupation for the industrial aspects of Britain help Brendan in encouraging people to reappraise their environments and feel a greater sense of involvement in them.