Revolve Gallery

Liam Spencer

Liam Spencer is one of the North Wests most popular and successful artists. Best known for his urban landscapes of Manchester and Salford, Spencer paints familiar scenes, both urban and rural, creating extraordinary pictures of bridges, canals, beaches, motorways, rooftops, traffic and the city at night. He is very much influenced by weather conditions and is drawn to painting twilight, wet or bright sunny days, conditions in which he can exploit the saturated, rich colours which make his work so distinctive and atmospheric.

“…this approach clearly has its roots in Impressionism and early modern art, but what makes looking at Liam Spencer’s paintings today so refreshing is that they very simply and confidently belong to that rarest of all traditions – the tradition of good painting”. Bridget Riley 1996

Background

Liam Spencer was born in Burnley in 1964. He studied Fine Art at Manchester Polytechnic, graduating in 1986. After living and working in Manchester for many years, he came to public attention in 2000, with an exhibition “Urban Panoramas” at the newly opened Lowry arts centre in Salford. In 2006 he exhibited “From Manchester to Shanghai” at Manchester Art Gallery, and was the subject of a 30 minute documentary on BBC NW, “A Picture of Manchester.”

He currently lives and works in the Rossendale Valley in East Lancashire, is a regular visitor to Cornwall and has made paintings of New York, Istanbul and Beijing in recent years.

Inspiration

"I’m inspired by things that I see. It’s as simple as that really. My subjects are sometimes quite mundane, but transformed somehow by a quality of light or weather. I think the real subject is probably light and colour. I like the idea of uncovering beauty in unexpected places. My view of the world is almost certainly filtered through the eyes of the great artists whose work has influenced and inspired me over the years."

To canvas

"I worked for many years directly from observation, outdoors and from studio windows. I gradually began to make more use of a camera, which is now a constant companion and always ready to record what are often fleeting impressions. Although the mechanics of my painting process has changed over time, I still try and approach the work in the same spirit as if I was painting outdoors, employing a bold painterly approach, aiming for an overall impression rather than detail, and trying to capture energy and movement in my brush-strokes."