Dan Broughton

My painting practice weaves together various strands of interest and influence, the most prominent being a love of Brutalist architecture and a desire to explore the fundamental components of abstract painting. In a way, I seem to be using the architecture to explore abstract painting and the painting to analyse the aesthetics of architecture

Inspiration comes from sketchbook work or photographs, then the process involves drawing out a composition followed by layered application of colour. Paintings then evolve through the use of various paint application techniques and removal tools including brushes, cloths, squeegees, scrapers and sprayed thinners. All along an intuitive editing process adjusts, conceals and preserves to refine the composition and balance. While the brutalist motifs and proportions provide compositional structure, the colour and paint quality soften the feel of the work. I try to get to a space where I’m working without too much applied thinking, relying on my process and experience to shape the finished pieces

My interest in urban landscape stems from the buzz I get visiting any city, having grown up in a small town. The scale, the history and, as I get older the constant decay and renewal fascinates me. The Brutalist schemes I'm interested in provide us with some of the purest examples of a particularly forward-thinking architectural philosophy. Although not always successful, I like the attitude that embraced new building materials and had inherent in its design process, a desire to nurture inclusive communities by providing the facilities to educate, entertain and empower the inhabitants. I am concerned with the simultaneous emergence of this distinctive brutal aesthetic in architecture and a certain branch of minimal, geometric British abstract paining and the crossover  and similarities in these creative processes.