Painting Works | John Middleton at The Coningsby Gallery
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Middleton’s latest London exhibition brings together works that have been informed by his peripatetic journeys and a lifetime of creativity.
John Middleton’s life is full of contradictions; he was born at the start of the Second World War in Yorkshire, a county divided at that time between idyllic countryside, harsh industrial landscape and coal mines. Even as a child he refused to conform to convention, but found solace through art and it is this that has sustained him throughout a long and fascinating career. Now, aged 74, Middleton paints daily from his studio in Harrogate.
Middleton’s first public works were controversial sculptures which drew crowds to Lytham St Anne’s and Leeds. But his first love was, and remains, painting. He sold his work from a gallery in his studio and earned a reputation as a working artist ready to share his craft. In 1969 he was offered a teaching post at Harrogate College of Art. Middleton began his new career as an art lecturer and began to show his work with The Nicholas Treadwell Gallery and The Mayor Gallery.
Middleton treads the dividing line between the figurative and the abstract yet because of his independent nature he adheres to neither, but is sustained by their influence. Through his love of art he can journey in the present and the past and seek their values in his painting. He never dates his work because he does not measure time.
In the artist’s own words, ‘A piece of string has a beginning and an end. I will never remember where it starts or ends, only the in-between matters. Life is a one shot deal – just dig it while it is happening.’