Greetland artist Paul Dene Marlor, who scooped this year’s Professional Artist of the Year Award with a watercolour of Halifax Town Hall, is
exhibiting the winning painting – together with over 40 other works – at the Harrison Lord Gallery in Brighouse.
Paul’s stunning image, showing the ornate Victorian building backlit by sunshine after rain, was selected from 6,000 entries for the international Society for All Artists award.
“It was a big surprise when I won,” says Paul, “and I’m not really sure why it was chosen. They said it just stood out – maybe it was the quality of the light and colours. We had a lovely day out in London when I went to accept the award.”
Paul was born in Brighouse and worked as a graphic artist and sign-writer until seven years ago when he became a full-time professional artist. He paints mostly in watercolour and says his work is focussed on landscapes, wildlife and still life.
This year has been an extraordinarily successful one for the painter who, as well as winning the prestigious SAA title, was invited to take part in the Sky Landscape Artist of the Year television series. The programme, which takes the format of a competition, will air this month on Sky Arts. Paul was one of 50 landscape artists who were invited to the National Trust property Lyme Park and asked to produce a work. Only one artist was chosen to go forward from the regional heat. “I didn’t get through,” said Paul, “but it was a wonderful experience and I really enjoyed it. The person who won did quite an abstract work, so perhaps that’s what they were looking for.
“My work is representational although my style is getting looser.”
Paul, who studied graphics at the former Dewsbury and Batley College of Art, now works from a studio at home. He travels widely for inspiration for his landscapes and sells in galleries as far afield as Cornwall and Edinburgh.
But it was the 46-year-old artist’s scene of Halifax Town Hall that he chose to submit for the SAA awards. “It’s somewhere I have always wanted to paint,” explained Paul, “I love the ornate Victorian buildings in that part of town.
“I decided to make it after a rainstorm so there are reflections in the street and I took the cars out and put the figure with the umbrella in to give it a focal point.”
The winning work has already sold (for £900), which Paul says both delighted and upset him.
“I got a little bit sad when it sold because I was quite attached to it. I often feel like that but as an artist I have to make a living.”
But Halifax Town Hall and other works can be seen at the Brighouse gallery on Bradford Road to October 10.
