Using the images and landscapes of his native North-East as inspiration, Alastair Lovett creates beautiful oil paintings that are true to his ideals. He talks to Sarah Foster

ALASTAIR Lovett tells a story about being asked to erect a shed.

It was not a task he welcomed – this was flat-pack, and he is a fine carpenter skilled at moulding wood from scratch. He did it anyway, and was appalled by what he saw.

“You wouldn’t believe the quality of the wood – it was basically scrap,” says the 44-yearold, who lives in Littletown, near Durham. “I’m amazed it hasn’t fallen down. With the carpentry you are up against imported trash and chipboard rubbish. I think people are wasting their money. I think one ought to value one’s living space better and go for something that will be around when you are gone.”

With Alastair, there is no ambiguity, no halfheartedness.

He is clear in his convictions, and makes no apologies for it. When it comes to his art, be it painting, fine carpentry or wood engraving, in which he also specialises, he is totally passionate and 100 per cent committed, making him the type of person you rarely encounter.

Driven to create art since childhood, it is only in the past four years that Alastair has devoted himself to this full-time. His current focus is oil painting, and there are two main themes: the effect of light at dawn and at sunset, and horses, with which he is fascinated.

He is currently exhibiting alongside the Russian-born painter and designer Marc Chagall at the Balman Gallery in Corbridge, Northumberland , which he considers an honour, and has been invited to participate in the Affordable Art Fair in London’s Hampstead next year.

Alastair’s work is painstaking – he spends hours observing and drawing and then translating the images through the medium of oils.

The composition is part-reality, part-imagination, as he manipulates what he sees to create balance, often adding humans or horses from other scenes. It’s all-consuming, and Alastair constantly strives for perfection. He says it’s in his blood.

“As a kid I would get rolls of wallpaper and cover it with drawings. I grew up in the 1970s and the opportunities that exist now didn’t then, so it became something I did in private.

I didn’t give a toss what people thought of what I did. I’m still like that now.”

A milestone was meeting the painter Wolfe von Lenkiewicz at York University, when Alastair was a wayward 18-year-old studying English Literature. “He taught me to paint,” says Alastair. “He introduced me to the idea of painting from observation, doing still life, stuff like that. I think you need somebody to show you technique and how the materials work.”

Despite von Lenkiewicz igniting his passion, Alastair didn’t initially pursue art as a career, taking on a series of jobs including working for the RSPCA in education. It was his wife Elizabeth who prompted him to follow his heart.

“We’ve got friends in Brittany and decided to go there,” says Alastair. “On the way we spent a couple of days in Paris. We went to the Louvre, and it was a watershed moment for me.

The best stuff isn’t in the big galleries – it’s in the little ones. Exquisite little paintings.

“Elizabeth said, ‘why aren’t you doing this?’.

I said, ‘number one, I’m not good enough, and, number two, there isn’t an audience’. She said, ‘why don’t you try?’, and I thought why not?.”

Alastair admits that being self-employed is difficult, and that he struggles to market himself.

He acknowledges the difficulty he faces being based in the North-East as opposed to London and hates being pigeon-holed as a local artist. His relationship with the area in which he grew up, and which inspires much of his work, is complex.

“I’ve got a love/hate relationship with the North-East,” says Alastair, who was born in Stockton. “I love the landscape. I love the distinctiveness of the places. I don’t think I would have carried on painting and drawing if I had lived in another part of the country.

“Growing up in Teesside in the 1970s was a unique experience because you were surrounded by all this heavy industry. I would wander round as a kid and there was something about these huge structures looming at the end of the street. There was something magical about it.

“I can’t bear that obsession with mining. There’s a whole sub-genre of painting miners, but it’s all been done. It’s not even the North I’m interested in. It’s the subjective experience of being in these places.”

One of Alastair’s favourite haunts is the estuary at Teesmouth. He is fascinated by its epic proportions and is drawn to its otherworldliness. He loves the technical challenge of translating his impressions into art, engraving minutely-detailed pictures into wood from which he makes prints and sometimes paintings. He is proud of his talent but doesn’t seem boastful.

“It’s important to me that whatever I do is of the highest possible quality, within my ability. There’s nothing more noble and functional than a garden gate – it’s the ultimate form and function. I think doors are beautiful things. I love them,” says Alastair.

“It doesn’t matter what I do – as long as it’s functional and well-made, it will look beautiful. It’s the same with painting: if there’s an idea at the core of the image that you believe in, and you want to communicate it and you fashion it in the best way you can, it’s going to work.”

Alastair doesn’t believe in planning for the future, preferring to follow his creative instincts. His aim is simple: to gain maximum exposure for his ideas. “My aspiration is to reach as wide an audience as possible,” he says. “What that comes down to is the very simple fact of exhibiting work, of getting it out there, of communicating with as many people as possible. If I sell stuff along the way, that’s brilliant.”

  • The Marc Chagall exhibition featuring Alastair’s work runs at the Balman Gallery, Corbridge, Northumberland, until October 14.