Matzke Fine Art and Design

Andy Eccleshall, Paintings

“Almost every painting begins with an experience, mostly related to atmosphere and light. Now living in the Pacific North West, I find myself surrounded by constant inspiration.”

For over 40 years, Andy Eccleshall continues to be inspired by drama in nature and contrasts in light and form to create his engaging oil paintings.

Growing up in the UK, the poetic nature of his painting shows how firmly rooted he is in the English tradition of landscape painting, a reverence for nature that emerged in the 18th Century. When viewing an Eccleshall painting, one can recall the Romantic landscape style emulated by William Turner, who created expressionistic studies of light, color, and atmosphere and Thomas Gainsborough who innovated painting out-of-doors directly from nature, known now as plein air painting.

Inspired by his Pacific Northwest home in Washington State, Eccleshall paints plein air studies and takes his own source photographs to use as references. From there, he is able to paint a new illusion of the original scene. Eccleshall’s dramatic cloud forms, utterly still twilight depictions and his use of almost completely monochromatic color palettes portray specific lighting and a poetic mood. A small light glowing in an upper window of an otherwise dark country home, the stars in the sky above an abandoned barn or his cumulus clouds rolling up into the sky are almost as if a visual scene has leapt from the pages of a classic novel.

Small Works: Plein Air Paintings