TOM PALIN is an artist who knows his own mind. There was a time when he painted huge canvases under the impression, he says, that bigger made the work more important.
But Palin, 33, started painting smaller, until some paintings were not much larger than a paperback book.
Last night, the Birkenhead-born artist unveiled his work at his first major Liverpool solo exhibition.
The show at the View Two Gallery, in Mathew Street, was packed with Palin’s small masterpieces, landscapes, cityscapes, character paintings and still lifes.
Gallery owner Ken Martin wanted to show Palin’s work because other artists had recommended him and he reckons that is the best recommendation.
Palin, still based in Wirral, has been exhibiting for ten years, ever since graduating from Liverpool John Moores University.
And he has picked up prizes including the Hunting Arts Prize for Young Artist of the Year, prizes he says that helped his career enormously.
He has been courted by London galleries and turned them down. "I didn’t want to be standing at openings with a glass of wine in my hand, revealing my latest body of work. I hate all the nonsense," he says. He does not even have an agent.
With a degree in art history, he lectures and teaches at places like The Lowry and Leeds College, teaching both painting and art history.
It’s not just for the money, he says. "I remember my art teachers and the influence they had on me and now I want to inspire young artists."
But he is always painting, mostly in oils, and hoping his work "sneaks up on you."
He certainly has an eye for the unusual and paints in a bold, Impressionist style. Sometimes, as in Girl at a Window, it is difficult to make out detail; others like Stage Fright (after Vermeer) are almost comical, this a white-haired woman with bulging eyes and a shocked expression.
The Other Side of the Wall reveals strange shapes, A Room With a View 2 a red vase in a window. They all have terrific energy and a confident quality.
* TOM PALIN’S exhibition runs at the gallery until February 9.
