Collection: Rob Ford Artist Biography and Art Gallery Collection

Rob Ford is a British Expressionist Landscape artist who, with striking brushwork and deep colors, paints stunningly unique landscapes. Despite Rob his childhood penchant for painting on walls and rugs, the young artist was encouraged by his family to continue to create. While Ford attended art college, he felt pushed into modern art, like abstract expressionism, because his peers looked down on the Neo-Classicism and Pre-Raphaelite movements. Though at times art college felt restrictive, Ford completed his courses with a greater knowledge and passion for art. After completing college, Rob Ford looked for a job in which he could use his painting skills. After much persistence, Ford landed a position designing murals for a company that specialized in theme restaurants. After spending a few years with the company, he had developed the confidence to being painting full time for private sales. He prefers to work in oil paint preparing the ground and finishing it in sienna, sanguine or an ochre shade. This means he is not confronted with a stark white canvas and allows the ground colors to shine through the over layers. Rob Ford then uses a combination of techniques to create the moods and light in his painting often applying the paint in thick layers.

Rob Ford was one of only two UK painters chosen to join a group of European artists in Swidnica, Poland, for a week of Plain Air painting in May 2000. This trip to southern Poland inspired a number of works which were included in an exhibition by selected European artists in Swidnica. These paintings are part of a large body of study, which reflect Ford's interest in the work of artists such as Paul Cezanne, Ivan Hitchens, John Constable and Salvador Dali, among others. They also show us his fascination with places where the passive, yet relentless, passing of time has allowed nature to re-stake her claim - places where there is no obvious divide between the earth and air. Some of Ford's favorite artists include Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Delacroix, and abstract expressionists like Mark Rothko. His greatest inspiration comes from his local landscape and the way the light and seasons change the terrain over the course of a year.