David Tress
Encyclopedia
Landscape art
Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...
in and around his home in Pembrokeshire
Pembrokeshire
Pembrokeshire is a county in the south west of Wales. It borders Carmarthenshire to the east and Ceredigion to the north east. The county town is Haverfordwest where Pembrokeshire County Council is headquartered....
, southwest Wales. He combines the techniques of collage
Collage
A collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
and impasto
Impasto
In English, the borrowed Italian word impasto most commonly refers to a technique used in painting, where paint is laid on an area of the surface very thickly, usually thickly enough that the brush or painting-knife strokes are visible. Paint can also be mixed right on the canvas...
with conventional painting and drawing to produce results that have been categorized as a form of abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
.
Early life
Tress was born in WembleyWembley
Wembley is an area of northwest London, England, and part of the London Borough of Brent. It is home to the famous Wembley Stadium and Wembley Arena...
, northwest London, and studied at Harrow College of Art before graduating in Fine Art
Fine art
Fine art or the fine arts encompass art forms developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than practical application. Art is often a synonym for fine art, as employed in the term "art gallery"....
s from Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham (now Nottingham Trent University
Nottingham Trent University
Nottingham Trent University is a public teaching and research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as a new university in 1992 from the existing Trent Polytechnic , however it can trace its roots back to 1843 with the establishment of the Nottingham Government School of Design...
). In 1976 he moved to Pembrokeshire where he has lived ever since. His wife, Marijke Tress-Braaksma, is also an artist. :)
Work and technique
In Wales, Tress began painting local scenes in water-colour and other media, developing a highly detailed realism epitomized by works such as Winter Sun (1983) and First Sun, Preseli (1984).
Deciding that he had reached the limit of what he could achieve with realism alone, he instead developed an aggressively expressionist style that involves physically scraping or cutting the painted surface and then repairing it, building up layer upon layer as if to mimic the seasonal sequence of decay and regrowth. Tress makes sketches in the field but the final paintings are done in his studio, relying as much on memory and emotional response to the subject as on the original drawing. Although much of his work borders on the abstract, some, particularly his graphite drawings, is intensely realistic, taking on an almost photographic quality when viewed from a distance. As well as Wales, his subjects include landscapes in Scotland, the Lake District, Ireland and southern France, along with cityscapes of London.
He was one of 48 British artists and designers commissioned by the Royal Mail for the Millennium stamp
Millennium Stamp
A Millennium stamp is a postage stamp issued by a postal administration commemorating a millennium associated with that country's history but several countries issued stamps for the beginning of the 3rd millennium in same cases depicting some of their country's achievements over the preceding...
series. His design, issued in September 1999 as part of a set called The Farmers’ Tale, depicted open-field farming
Open field system
The open field system was the prevalent agricultural system in much of Europe from the Middle Ages to as recently as the 20th century in some places, particularly Russia and Iran. Under this system, each manor or village had several very large fields, farmed in strips by individual families...
at Laxton
Laxton, Nottinghamshire
Laxton is a small village in the civil parish of Laxton and Moorhouse in the English county of Nottinghamshire, situated about 25 miles northeast of Nottingham city centre....
near Newark, Nottinghamshire. It was also Royal Mail’s contribution to that year’s Europa postage stamp
Europa postage stamp
Europa stamps have been issued annually since 1956. First sets representing the founding 6 members of the ECSC, European Coal and Steel Community, then by the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations in 1959, and by PostEurop since 1993...
issue on the theme of Parks and Reserves.