Neil Butterfield Art

Dedicated to Graham Woodall, friend and mentor 1950 - 2015

latest catalogue image
I update my catalogue every year in time for Oxford Artweeks. In it you will find all (or almost all) of my paintings that are currently available.

OPEN CATALOGUE HERE


I hope you will enjoy browsing but of course there is nothing like the real thing. If you can, why not look into one of my Artweeks exhibitions in May - full details on the opening pages of the catalogue. At any other time, message me (07800 658859) and fix a date to come round to my studio in west Oxford.

Artweeks exhibitions 2023

Adderbury 13 - 21 May
Wolvercote 20 - 29 May  (closed Monday n22nd May)





ABOUT image
If you had asked the 15-year-old me what I wanted to be, I would have said “a painter”. This was not because of any prodigious talent, but because I was a bit of an art geek, spending hours on my own, wandering round the National Gallery. Now, after a career in teaching and then in publishing (20 wonderful years at Oxford University Press), I am finally realising that teenage aspiration.

My work is usually figurative but driven by an obsession with colour and an exploration of the tension between the painted surface and the illusion of pictorial space. As a process, it’s all about balance: not too many ingredients and knowing just when to stop, rather like cooking, that most wonderful of all human interventions. The Oxford Times has described my work as ”glowing and exuberant” and that is something I try to live up to!

My art heroes include Paul Gauguin (an awful human being), Piero della Francesca, Barbara Rae and above all, Paul Klee. For Klee it was a visit to Tunisia that did it. “I have found colour,” he said, ”it has hold of me”. For me it was India and in particular Rajasthan.

My work is in collections in UK, USA, France, Italy, and Australia. I show work in a number of galleries in Oxfordshire and exhibit regularly in Artweeks. I was the Chair of the Turrill Sculpture Garden and for some years on the Committee of the Oxford Art Society.


"It's not a matter of painting life. It's a matter of giving life to painting." Richard Diebenkorn

NEIL BUTTERFIELD

22 Third Acre Rise, Oxford, OX2 9DA

07800 658859

neilb0201@gmail.com

Exhibitions 2010 - 2022


Art Room exhibition - North Wall Gallery, Oxford

Carterton Annual Art Show

Portrait of a Magician - Artweeks solo exhibition

Abingdon Museum 'art card' show

Wolvercote Festival Art Show

Northamptonshire Open Studios (group exhibition)

Selected for Banbury ART2 Exhibition

Points of View - West Ox Arts Gallery (group exhibition)

Selected for OAS Open Exhibition,  Said Business School

Solo show at Red Lion (Wolvercote)

4@No5- a joint Artweeks show with Ann Collinson, Richard Fox and Lucy Polson.

Artweeks taster exhibition at Hamptons, 216 Banbury Road, Oxford

Oxford Art Society at West Ox Arts Gallery

Wolvercote Festival Art Show

Art in the Barn (Cuddesdon)

Burford Art gallery

SOTA Gallery, Witney

Art of Poetry (WOA)

Viillage Arts annual show (Appleton)

Artweeks with Ann Collinson and Nigel Williams

Art Wall  - Central Library, Queen Street, Oxford (solo show)

Real Wood Gallery, Woodstock (solo show)

Selected for Oxford Art Society at SJE Arts

Flash in the Pan (Oxford, Jericho)

Artweeks with Kit Adlington and Dawn Benson

Yarnton Pottery Show 2016 (with Andrew Hazelden, potter)

Selected for Oxford Art Society at Town Hall 2016

2016 Artweeks with Alison Morris and Phil Dove

Burford Gallery Christmas Show

Lambourn show at RDA

Kyffin Gallery Winter Exhibition

2017 Artweeks with Alison Morris, Phil Dove and Alec Jones

Wolvercote Festival Art Show 2017

'Natural Flow' at West Ox Arts with Judie Waldman. Claire Christie Sadler and Martin Smith

Burford Gallery Winter Exhibition 2018

Edinburgh Art Fair (with Kingfisher Art) 2018

Windsor Art Fair 2018

4@No2 - City Artweeks show 2018 with Alison Morris, Phillip Dove and Jane Moser

4@No2 - City Artweeks show 2019 with Alison Morris, Phillip Dove and Jane Moser

Burford Gallery Summer Exhibition 2019

Dove Gallery, Winchcombe, August 2020

Burford Gallery Autumn Exhibition 2020

Kingfisher Gallery, Chipping Norton, August 2021

Burford Gallery Autumn Exhibition 2021

Dolphin Gallery, Wantage, 2022







A wonderful poem by Wallace Stevens

and very close to my heart, as the inspiration 

behind my first proper exhibition.



Anecdote of the Jar

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.


Two artists with whom I regularly share exhibition space and whose work you might enjoy:

Alison Morris - jewellery

Phillip Dove  - stained glass

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