About the Artist

Wayne Jefferson was born and grew up in a small Hampshire village. As a child he showed an early flair for drawing and was encouraged in this by his parents, his father being a talented amateur watercolourist. He studied Fine Art – Painting at Winchester School of Art and an Art teacher’s course at Hornsey Art College. While making a living at art teaching and lecturing, Wayne continued to devote his time to his own artwork and has exhibited in a range of venues.

“A selection of his paintings and poems can be seen in his next exhibition “Trees, Tracks and Tides” at the West End Arts Centre Gallery, Aldershot (2nd – 31st May, 2024)

He has travelled extensively to further his understanding of the great masters in art. His particular artistic influences are Cezanne, Matisse, G. F. Watts and The German Expressionists.

He now lives in the Hampshire village of North Waltham and, since giving up full-time lecturing, is able to devote a large amount of his time to drawing and painting both in his studio and out in the surrounding countryside that he loves.

About the Artwork

My current art is a series of modern, expressive landscape paintings that convey my love of the local countryside in the south of England and in particular, scenes of Hampshire and Dorset. They move away from traditional painterly translations of the landscape and into a personal interpretation of place which seeks to express the sensation and personality of the landscape. They are individual studies of particular locations that portray a unique point of view filtered by my emotional response to the surroundings. I paint to communicate what I feel as well as what I see. The paintings also show a fondness for dramatic skies, which comes from my childhood memories of the sky above the village in which I grew up.

These colourful original oil paintings are all landscapes based on rural views that have provided me with inspiration and stimulus for my artwork. I have always painted from life. Nature is alive and always changing. My starting point is always the actual scene at a particular time and each painting captures some fragment of this landscape. The drama of ever-shifting skies; the varying character and seasons of the countryside and the total atmospheric reality of rural life promotes a desire to take the image I see and find a means of expressing how I feel about it. This latest series of paintings, therefore, draws upon and reflects both my love of the countryside and my personal response to its ever changing moods.

My preferred medium is oil paint on canvas and my style of painting is “interpretive expressionism”. As an artist I am able to fully concentrate on the creative discovery of rich atmospheric expressions of place.

Painting for me is a reacting, feeling endeavour, where I experience an interaction between the subject matter and the act of painting. There are so many variations of seasons, weather, time of day and personal mood that I am sure that there will always be new visual challenges for me in the local landscape.

You can see these paintings in the website’s virtual gallery. All current oil paintings are for sale. A price list is obtainable on request. Some limited edition giclee prints are also available.