David A Parfitt
Biography
David A Parfitt was born in St Agnes, Cornwall, in 1962. Although he knew from an early age that he wanted to draw and paint, he initially worked alongside painting and began selling his work through local galleries. This encouraged him to move to part-time work before becoming a full-time artist in 2007. His selected exhibitions include the ING Discerning Eye, Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, Royal Society of Marine Artists, Royal Watercolour Society, Royal West of England Academy, Sunday Times Watercolour Competition and international watercolour biennials. He has received awards including the Winsor & Newton Award, Frank Herring Award and James Fletcher-Watson RI Award.
Artist Statement
David A Parfitt is a self-taught landscape artist working in watercolour, water-based media and monochromatic monoprint. His representational paintings aim to convey a sense of place without appearing overly contrived or deliberate. Passionate about watercolour’s fluidity and uncontrollable nature, he works quickly, drawing seemingly haphazard marks with a brush and allowing the painting to develop rather than simply replicating the landscape before him. He experiments with the medium, pushing watercolour as far as possible without using opaque or white pigment.
His monoprints remove colour to concentrate on tone, extreme contrast, texture and mark-making while pursuing the same sense of place as his paintings. He creates marks both by wiping ink from the plate and by drawing and marking directly onto it. He finds the mechanical process therapeutic, while the unpredictability of the result when the print is revealed brings an additional sense of excitement. Across both practices, he seeks to allow the work to acquire a life of its own.