About the Artist
Based in South Hampshire, Uk
Member of the Romsey art group
Exhibited at Romsey and over Hampshire aswell as open studios.
Specialist in portraiture, both animal and human, but enjoys art in many directions.
Location/History
Details
Lesley Kim Stevens.
I always dabbled as a child, winning a fairly prestigious prize for drawing a horse at 14, but otherwise gaining a top grade at school was just that, nothing more and I was forced to drop the subject for more academic direction.
Adult life started in the City of London. The City was manic, frantic, and furious, where as art is less mathematical, peaceful and all encompassing. It’s the difference between running the 100m and snuggling up on the sofa with a blanket. Life was too busy in the monetary world to look at the beauty of nature and the younger me would never have considered picking up a brush. However, I bought art, always thinking that I could do something like it too, one day.
Painting was taken up by accident when a head on collision stopped me horse riding. In the following year, a more sedentary pastime was encouraged and I took art lessons in Canterbury, Kent, never able to return to the saddle. So art became a new life and art changed me. It is still doing so, taking me is a journey with no perceivable end, but one where there is enjoyment and self expression.
The Full Story
"Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough: give the world the best you’ve got anyway. “
All I want to do is paint
Painting to me is an emotional expression of life as seen through the eyes and experiences of the artist. Connecting with the image in your head and sensing the feelings the image inspires must be brought into art for the artist to paint and the buyer to want to purchase. Both must touch together.
Nature is an obvious inspiration and the countryside and coasts around Hampshire and Yorkshire, especially the North York moors drag me into my shed to paint. Accompanied by my dog, I can walk happily for miles in all weathers consuming the fresh air that blows over the hills or off the sea and appreciating the beauty and colours all around, something when you are younger, it is harder to grasp.
Our pasts define us too and the liveliness of a younger me and the excitement youth brings can be captured when returning to the cities, London in particular. Alive with noise, fun and purpose, the bustle and intention of the people walking quickly or the tourist gaping at first seen sights, L Whether it is the people or their surroundings, the capital is full of purposeful life. Or if I’m painting a horse’ capturing those lost years flying around the countryside or through Epping Forest or riding to my limit in Southern Ireland, I can smell the animal, feel its strength and purpose and try to harness that experience in paint.
Without emotion, paintings have no life and say nothing. Even the experience of death with a grief that consumes can lead to the creation of art.
You just have to immerse yourself in your feelings and let yourself go.