John Meaker

I see the tutor’s role as that of nurturing and developing in each individual an independent process of work capable of evolution and open to ideas. So I use a range of traditional and/or modernist techniques and processes to serve my own insight into the requirements of student or artist. I like to think I am a catalyst for experiment and innovation encouraging the group to try out and discuss new ideas. Accomplished artists will want a dialogue with a trainer rather than a teacher whereas students and beginners will need a teacher for skills and techniques. Each individual has their own vision and their own way of making marks – combine the individual nature with appropriate guidance hence outcomes should be surprising and not preconceived.

I hope each will achieve the means to access sources of creative energy and enthusiasm. While focusing on some of the fundamental ideas of Art and make good progress in learning technical skills suited to the individual process of each, leading to self confidence in the individual character and expressive qualities of their own painting and drawing.

I will advocate observational drawing from nature and from life; the analytical mechanics and perceptual disciplines of a dialogue with physical truth. Evangelise the use of light to demonstrate spatial relationships, and devices. In direct, clear, decisive mark-making I encourage gestural statements and responses. I may advocate space and defend two dimensional patches or vice-versa. Very often starting a course with a presentation of projected pictures I am happy if this stimulates discussion. Group discussion and group review are a significant part of my courses. It is very useful to refer students to appropriate artists from the accumulated wealth of Art history, the use of landmark and innovative artists as examples and guides of pathways for individual students. I should be able to recommend and demonstrate appropriate techniques and processes to each different student. Although I am keen on skill and craftsmanship I like to think that accident, chance and flux are essential elements of the painting or drawing process. I was fortunate to have tutors themselves taught by Sickert, Tonks, Coldstream, Uglow, Keith Vaughan, David Bomberg, together with my own particular study of Giacometti’s drawing; these examples represent my basis. Their teaching, theory and their own practices of work, demonstrate a range of related modes of perception which develop living and dynamic strands of late 20th century innovation and expression in drawing and painting.

The Art of Ideas, picture narratives, the history of Art, abstract values in painting, colour resonances and imaginative space. I always seem to find a new inspiration, a new artist representing a particular mode of perception, a development of a colour mixture, even a colour of the month.

In British painting everything from Alexander Cozens’ early, C18th “Abstract Expressionist”, experiments with chance & accident that divert or vary conscious control of composition – as well as the diametrically opposite – the craftsmanship and visionary narratives of William Blake. Ruskin. David Bomberg and Frank Auerbach, Soutine and the Abstract Expressionists. Different, even contradictory, parallel traditions of C20th drawing and painting - line, gesture, structure, process, colour and the varied and remarkable qualities of paint.

St. AlbansSchool of Art1966 – 68Introduction and Foundation

GoldsmithsCollege1968 – 71DAD Fine Art, Painting.

The Royal Academy Schools1976 – 81 Postgraduate studies (Keeper’s Guest)

25 years teaching residential courses and workshops in drawing and a variety of painting mediums at Missenden Abbey: weekend courses, one week and two week summer schools. Life Classes, Abstract Painting, Colour Courses, Landscape and Still Life Painting. Wherever I have lived I have run independent workshop classes and courses. Since 2005 at Abbotsbury Studio on the Dorset Coast. I have students of all ages coming to my workshops. Art students before and after art school, sixth formers needing help with their exams and portfolios, mature students and artists wanting to acquire certain skills or fluencies or simply practising their individual and particular areas of Art.

Private collections only.

Wrote and drew for “International Times”, it, magazine 1976 – 78. Regular lectures on a variety of Artists and Art Subjects. At present I am collating a “Masters and Teachers of 20th century Drawing” which discovers themes and related developments which run through from one to another significant 20th century teachers and artists. A book intended for learning practical skills and observational disciplines by studying landmark teachers and masters. Which is also a book to pass on ideas about the developments in modes of perception and understanding significant artists’ vision throughout the era of Modern Art.

Dorset Visual Arts
Dorset Arts Weeks
Chelsea Arts Club