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"With the support of the Arts Council, in June this year 2013 I will be traveling to Yellostone National Park, the Grand Teton range, and Green River in Wyoming USA. On my return I will produce a substantial body of work that, along with photography from the trip, will form an ambitious exhibition at the main public gallery in my home town of Bolton from March - November in 2014. You can follow the progress of the project with my blog at www.naughtonandmoran.com
Why Yellowstone? you may ask, I'll be visiting the sites of iconic paintings by Thomas Moran a 19th century painter also born in Bolton. He went onto to be one of the first landscape painters in America to chart a country defining itself and his work was pivotal in Yellowstone becoming the first National Park in the world. At the beginning of my career, fifteen years ago, the gallery in Bolton was able to raise funds to secure Moran's "Nearing Camp on Green River"(a composition which was to reoccur throughout his career and his first vision on his arrival in the West), the acquisition and his links to the town were inspirational to me at that time and ever since I have harboured a desire to see such things first hand. This Landscape had such a dramatic affect on both the imagination of Moran and the people of America, I intend to both learn from Moran and create original paintings as a result of what I experience" JN April 2013

James Naughton paints landscapes. Breathtaking landscapes that bear the ravages of wind and rain, yet remain imposing, defiant, at times almost intimidating. Within them, the artist expresses the sense of wonder and surprise he feels in nature, and records the essence of his experience.

Justine Brooks