Coastlines Chasing the Light

Born in Finedon, a small village in Northamptonshire, Michael left school at 15 with a dream of going to university and a thirst to study art. Coming from a close-knit but working class family, there was little chance of pursuing his dream but encouraged by his siblings, particularly his sister Ruby and her husband David, Michael continued to paint and develop his natural talent and exhibit his work locally. His career as a youth worker enabled him to teach art and use art as a therapy for young people with social problems, to express their feelings. Michael has continued to teach – he is an inspirational enabler and has the patience to encourage and empower would-be artists of all ages.

Thirty-five years passed by and Michael married Janice and they had two children, Simon and Zöe, only then did he decide to try to fulfil his early ambitions and, spurred on by his wife, he achieved a BA (hons) in Fine Art at the University of Central England. Michael has won many awards for his
artistic endeavours including:

  1997 Emma Jessie Phipps award in Theoretical Art Studies
  1997 Whitworth Wallis Marine Painting Competition Medal Winner
  2001 1st Prize in Sculpture and installation Bridport Open Art Competition
  2003 2nd Prize and voted 2nd most popular exhibitor Bridport Art Open Competition

It has taken Michael ten years since graduating to have the time, and the courage, to put together a book of his work, which illustrates the development of his own very personal visual language, and to communicate this vocabulary to the viewer through this work.

Michael’s paintings illuminate and breathe the local landscape and seascape of West Dorset and yet reach far beyond the representation of what he sees, and what we see too. They are windows onto a world that we can feel, touch, smell, inhale as well as see. Countryside in summer sunshine and winter rain, spring renewal and autumnal decline; seascapes that reflect the ever-changing emotions of the ocean – silent, serene, angry, tumultuous.

The paintings are profound and the sketchbooks are every bit as fascinating as they chart the journey of the artist’s eyes. Coastlines is a visual hymn to all that is glorious along the Jurassic Coast and inland to a timeless and unique landscape that is Dorset.

Flagon Press 2008 - ISBN (Coming Soon)
Paintings by Michael Chappell - Poems by James Crowden