John Patchett is regarded as one of the country’s leading exponents in the art of pastel painting and his love for the vibrancy and freshness of pastels is a feature of his work.
After attending Grimsby School of Art, Kingston-upon-Thames College of Art and Brighton College of Art, he settled in Adelaide, Australia where he lived for 19 years. During this period he returned to England regularly to paint and exhibit his work
In 1994, John returned permanently to this country, settling in East Anglia where he has easy access to some of his favourite landscape, garden, city, ‘Broadland’ and marine locations.
Besides holding over 35 successful solo shows in Australia and England, John’s pastel paintings have been exhibited in Japan, New Zealand and with the ‘Pastel Society’, ‘The Royal Society of Marine Artists’ and the 1997 ‘Laing Exhibition’ at the Mall Galleries, London, where his work was awarded the ‘Guest Choice’ prize.
Over the past ten years, John Patchett’s pastel paintings have become a regular feature in articles in the ‘Leisure Painter’ magazine.
He believes it is necessary to paint as much as possible on location, which has resulted in his work having immediacy and a strong sense of light and warmth.
Because of his experience in painting with oils and acrylics, he uses pastels very much as a ‘painting’ medium and has developed a technique which builds up numerous layers of transparent and opaque colour, creating rich and diverse results.
John feels that the hand can never achieve anything higher than the heart can command, therefore he chooses inspirational locations, where he can be enthusiastic about his subject and situation.
At the beginning of 2007, John sold his 1000th painting and to celebrate this personal landmark, he donated the painting to the purchaser.
One of John Patchett’s more recent ‘claims to fame’ is having a photograph of him, painting at his easel at Norwich market, printed on the box lid of the Norwich edition ‘Monopoly’ game!
‘The Picturecraft Exhibition Centre’ in Holt always have a selection of John’s recent paintings on display.
