artists register

Peter Thornborough

Stege Nor

Stege Nor

A quiet, lyrical painting of a half-submerged boat amongst reed beds on the small Danish island of Mon in the Baltic.

Acrylic on canvas
40cm x 60cm

Statement

I suffer for my art. Whether it’s by sunstroke from sitting in a field of wheat painting an Italian hill town, torn flesh from clambering through ditches and brambles to get that better view, or ruined espadrilles from cowpats as I trespass for the perfect angle from which to sketch or photograph.

 

My art is inspired by architecture. There’s architecture in the structure of a cliff, a stand of winter trees, the rushing of a river, the furrows of a ploughed field. Travel inspires me, as do Neolithic structures.

 

I studied in oil. I now work in acrylic, and sometimes pastel, on a variety of medium including board, panel and canvas.

 

I employ a variety of different styles to suit the current subject, often contrasting broad areas of surface texture with areas of intense detail. Consequently, I need to reach for the bigger brushes occasionally. Or paint a portrait.

 

My artistic influences include Andrew Wyeth, Paul Hogarth, Paul Nash, Eric Ravilious, Turner and the photographer Michael Kenna.

 

Biography

Born and educated in Sydney, Australia, Peter studied fine art painting at East Sydney College of Art. He exhibited in Sydney, before becoming an animator, and then an Art Director in the advertising industry.

He then left Australia to travel and settled in London in the mid-1970s.

There, Peter's output was entirely consumed by advertising as Creative Director and Illustrator. In 2001 he found the time to return to his lifelong passion, painting.

He exhibits in galleries in and around London and, since 2003, annually at the Chiswick Artists-At-Home Open Studios.

He has exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, had a One Man Show and various joint exhibitions on the island of Mon in Denmark, and accepts commissions from anywhere in the world. These have been as varied as a series of 19th Century Indian Maharajahs to a medieval Italian hilltown, the ancestral home of an Italian-American from Chicago.