Collection: David Kereszteny-Lewis

The son of a miner and part time game keeper, David Kereszteny-Lewis’s work is an autobiographical visualisation of his experiences in the landscapes he has come to know and understand intimately.

“My work is fundamentally about places I know, the emotional connection I have with them and the physical effect that society has had upon them, especially in mining and agriculture. I look for the physical scars our actions have, such as paths, fields and fences.”

David’s work is mostly based in Cheshire, Cornwall, Yorkshire, and North Wales and has painted landscapes in every season of the year. It has a constant theme of rain and water that adds its own specific atmosphere.

He uses mixed media such as acrylic, ink, etching and tempera. Gluing additional pieces of canvas and by overworking the original canvas he drips paint and uses large brush strokes that attack the canvas like a rainstorm in a windswept barren moorland. Music also plays an influence in his work, most of the titles of the work start life in the lyrics of songs that resonate with both his practice as an Artist and atmosphere created within an aural musical landscape.

All David’s smaller works are on paper with a gesso ground as this gives the paintings a resilient and textural base in which he tries to capture the uncompromising character of the places he explores. – And his use of colour often allows the viewer to identify seasons.

David was the Director of Visual Arts at the Grange school, and it’s often the places he takes students that form his ideas. Field trips to Japan, Spain, California, Morocco and Cornwall have all found an identity in his work, whilst leading Duke of Edinburgh expeditions in the Yorkshire Dales, Cumbria and Wales always manage to feed his desire for very wet and rain-soaked landscapes.