Kelvin Burgoyne

Kelvin Burgoyne was born in Pendle, Lancashire in 1949 and is completely self-taught. As a suspected polio victim when a small boy he spent many weeks in isolation and amused himself drawing and painting which he continued with varying degrees of intensity until 1995, when early retirement from the prison service enabled him to become professional.

His work has been a journey through the mediums of oil and pastel until reaching the ultimate discipline of watercolour. He paints in a traditional style and until 1999 his subject matter was extremely varied and attracted many commissions and successful one-man exhibitions.

For many years he has searched for the balance between English landscape and Mediterranean colour, an almost impossible arrangement, however, whilst drawing over moorland in August 1999 on a fabulously hot summer day, he experienced what most outdoor activists encounter. A sudden blackness, stillness and a chill brought on by a heavy summer storm. At its deepest, inexplicably, he saw the countryside bathed in vivid colour and the buildings almost white, mentally capturing the moment he has continued with this vision and works exclusively in the search for watercolour splendour.

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