Peter Austin

Peter Austin studied painting at Bournemouth College of Art. In 1962,following the award of a Travelling Scholarship and other bursaries, he went to live and to paint in southern Sweden where he was able to exhibit his work for the first time. During the period 1966 until 2006, Peter Austin taught art, was a schools inspector of art for OFSTED and a senior examiner for GCSE and GCE art & design.

Throughout this long career in art education, Peter Austin continued to paint and, from time to time, to exhibit his work in both London and provincial g alleries. Whereas early paintings were based mainly on the coast of Dorset, gradually his work began to reflect the experiences of travel – in France and Italy especially. Later paintings have been inspired by subject matter as varied as the landscapes of Morocco and Scotland, the Cordoba Mesquita, derelict barns and sheds and demolished buildings in the backstreets of Malaga. His most recent works are a response to the sense of open space and solitude that seems to characterise much of his local landscape in North Bucks. The impact of changing weather and of time has often been a starting point.

Paint quality and the manipulation of paint are important in all of Peter Austin's work but perhaps especially so in these most recent paintings, in particular, the way in which paint can be used to convey a sense of the subject, in a direct way, rather than merely acting as a medium to illustrate a place or scene.