IAN PEARSALL

Ian Pearsall was born in Salisbury, Rhodesia in 1967, and after the age of one, relocated, (pre-empting the war for an independent Zimbabwe), to Malawi. He lived there for the next fifteen years.

His connection to Stoke-on-Trent is through his parents, who were both born in The Potteries. His mother is from Birches Head, and his father from Northwood. They came from a lineage of potters, paintresses, soldiers and coal miners, with generations further back into the smoke of the six towns.

Ian Pearsall moved to The Potteries at the age of sixteen. He began to nurture the creative seed and undertook a BTEC Diploma at Newcastle-Under-Lyme College. He then went on to Trent Polytechnic (Nottingham Trent University) to complete a B.A.(Hons.)

He has travelled a great deal to visit all the great cities within the United Kingdom, Rome, Paris (where he lived very briefly), Florence, Barcelona, Cracow and more. He is now based in England, inspired by his agricultural and industrial surroundings.

Ian uses mixed media: paint, charcoal, even bitumen, to create his deep and atmospheric scenes. He combines a view of industry and nature, observing the impact of humans on the countryside around the area he grew up in, remembering hidden alleyways and rainy, open fields, tinged with elements of adventure and nostalgia.

He uses his work to evoke a feeling of location, atmosphere; a moment in history of a place and its people, often choosing to capture areas of loneliness and expanse to dive into his methods and techniques.