George Stuttard born 1993, is an abstract artist working in Wiltshire, United Kingdom. With limited artistic training, George takes inspiration from internal reflection and his background in design to create reactive paintings that respond to experiences in his life.
How did you get into art?
I fell in love with art around the age of 14 when I was first exposed to painting in secondary school. I taught myself to oil paint by making copies of famous paintings as partly I think I lacked the confidence to make my own work. This did however, make me fall in love with the process and I continued painting as a hobby on and off for many years. Painting was always what I wanted to do but throughout my life people would say you still need a real job. Fast forward to 2019 and after studying industrial design at university before going into commercial interior design work, I unexpectedly lost my mother. It was at this point I had a profound realisation that life really is too short to not do what you love, so I quit my job and went all in on making my passion a full time career.
How would you describe your style? What makes your art special?
Broadly, I always describe my work as being abstract but really I think my style is a little hard to define, partly because it is liable to change quite frequently, maybe this is what makes my work special. There is certainly some influence from my previous background in design and also my controlling personality. My work is always simply a result of what I am experiencing at the time of creation and the way I visualise that is completely dependant on that feeling. Sometimes I like to work with really dark colours, other times with bright colours, fine detail and no detail it really depends. I just never like to feel restricted.
How do you go about developing your work?
Constant technique and style experimentation keeps me learning and progressing. I am still in the infancy of my career so trial and error plays a big role in the development of my work and also means I often change the way I approach making new pieces. I am still finding my feet to some degree and developing my confidence has been making this process easier. I sometimes talk myself out of doing things but now I am learning to trust my gut more.
Who or what influences you?
The subject of my work is internal reflection I guess but the inspiration behind how I visualise this comes from anywhere and everywhere. I love experimenting with different processes and I get really exciting seeing people that are masters of their craft, often these are people outside of the art world.
What are you planning to do next?
At the moment I am working on a very colourful new collection which I am having fun with and trying not to take too seriously. I don’t tend to think further than what I am working on at any given time as most of my painting is reactive and the result of that painting always leads me onto something else. I love the excitement of not knowing where my work will lead me next. However, I would be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about experimenting with some three dimensional work in the near future.
Instagram
