Alec Cumming

Alec is an international artist, having spent several years working in India. He now spends time considering his influences in different locations such as California and Sri Lanka.

His practice, oil on canvas, is traditional in medium but the images that jump in and around the canvas are vibrant and playful. Within his work he continues to explore the idea of fleeting moments. Currently settled back to the UK, He finds himself considering the visual stimulus discovered in his three years spent in India, and travelling since then, and how these staggeringly different locations play out on canvas with his current settled space in Norfolk.

Questions such as how this imagery translates into a ‘pan global’ vocabulary become interesting. Creating a dialogue of mixing a western/eastern influence and the back and forth nature of the discussion happen on the surface of the canvas; moments, that may or may not have existed.

Within his own abstracted painting style there are shapes and forms that lead to suggestions of 'things'. The ideas of semi-recognisable forms can suggest a narrative. Forms appear through drawings, thoughts, ideas and experiences. The paintings may suggest spaces he knows, fabrics, places, an interesting space between buildings seen whilst walking in the street, a moment glimpsed whilst laying poolside, or even a collection of observed objects, tyres stacked on the road or a table laden with drinks and paraphernalia.

Many of these important elements are enhanced by a desire to explore the way light in these places enhances the compositions he allows himself to glimpse, bright harsh light that makes colours pop and resonate, a shimmering haze feeling. He wants his paintings to have the same resonation. This of kind Abstraction allows him the pleasure of observing the world and translating it into a visual dialogue.

Alec Cumming graduated in 2007 from Norwich University of the Arts with a degree in Fine Art. He has enjoyed success with a number of major solo shows in London, throughout the UK and abroad. You’ll find him deep in the countryside of Norfolk, but very close to Norwich, UK. He has spent time working globally and in particular has spent a long time in Delhi, India, where he had a studio at the Niv Art Centre in South Delhi for three years.