IDN | This Sceptre'd Isle

About

"This royal throne of kings, this sceptre'd isle...
This other Eden, demi-paradise…" 

IDN's point of reference for his latest gouache paintings, This Sceptre'd Isle, is Shakespeare's Richard II. The artist's works are a journey into the British landscape.  Engaging with the multi-sensory elements of the outdoors, IDN conveys a layered expression of these lingering moments, which continue to refresh in one's memory.

"At first we begin with an attachment to a particular place; where we were born and the environments to which we were, and are, exposed only to find out later that this layering of meaning has created a common sense of appreciation and worth” –The Artist

ABOUT THE ARTIST

IDN or Ian David Newman (b.1953, U.K.) trained at The Brighton School of Art, and subsequently taught fine art. IDN creates paintings about the land that deal with the real world of everyday experience before nature. This comes from his belief that, in the twenty-first century, there is a tiredness in the viewer that comes from over familiarity or white noise, and this can only really be addressed and overcome if the artist shares visual experience in a direct and subtle way.  Today, the idea of painting landscape can appear fraught with clichés and stereotypes -preventing the essential power and poetry of the subject to be experienced and appreciated. The challenge for the artist is to make afresh that which is in a state of flux, to in some way convey the permanent sense of wonder and life affirming power to be found in the most familiar locale.