Joe Giampalma
I am 27 years old and I have lived in the town of Shepshed, Leicestershire all of my life, apart from going to university in Cardiff.
I balance my art practice with my job as a primary school teacher which allows my passion for painting to be experienced by the pupils.
I have been fascinated with painting people since I was a teenager but I have spent the last 10 years exploring different subject matter as well, from life painting to landscapes.
Still life and landscapes are subjects that are very important to me because I feel I can lose myself in the intense colours and abstract forms that nature creates. I aim to produce colourful and vibrant work that can make a mundane picture look dramatic but also appealing to a wide audience.
When I paint people my work concentrates on the idea of capturing a persons’ mood and personality at a glance. I work quickly with expressive brush and knife marks to try and attain a sense of movement within the painting. This process sometimes distorts and twists the figure out of recognition completely and although I feel likeness to the subject is important, I believe that it is vital that I leave my response to the subject through expressive and vivid marks.
