Robert Maddison
ROBERT MADDISON, ARTIST & PHOTOGRAPHER
ROBERT MADDISON was born in 1946 in Newcastle Upon Tyne. He studied at both Newcastle and Manchester Colleges of Art. Bob then went to Northern Counties College of Education prior to teaching art and photography at Blaydon Comprehensive School for twelve years, followed by a part time post at Dame Allan's School.
Bob lives with his wife Elizabeth, daughter Natalie, and son Joseph in an 18 century cottage at the head of the Allen Valley, in the Northern Pennines. He has a studio attached to his cottage in which he produces and exhibits his work.
Most artists evolve towards their mature style in stages, with many false starts along the way. Bob Maddison is a rarety who in the seventies made a quantum leap from minimilist abstraction to finely detailed realism with no intermediate steps. He began painting watercolours that were often the size of traditional easel paintings and beyond, with the degree of development and detail pushed to extremes. Because of this and the depth of colour and range of tone his paintings give the impression of being painted in a more substantial medium. He seems fascinated by the shifting poles of abstraction and realism - two paths which he says 'lead to the same goal.' He uses the techniques of the realist to make pictures that 'feel very abstract.' In fact he calls his work 'abstract-realism.'
His subject matter is usually still life or floral, although he says that he is not interested in the su
Watercolour, Pastels, Mixed Media, Coloured Pencil
Flowers And Gardens, Still Life
Northumberland, United Kingdom mainland