Art that "makes you want to reach out and touch"

Phil Randles, a gallery director, said: “The acclaimed photorealist painter Clive McBain produces the most astonishingly detailed works of wildlife in their natural habitat or occupying dilapidated buildings. The effect is mesmerising and impressive but makes you want to reach out and touch the animals. Clive’s paintings sell all over the world and he is considered to be one of the UK’s leading wildlife painters.”

As a new departure the gallery is also exhibiting a collection of fine art paintings from the European Post-Impressionist and Belle Epoque periods from the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

The exhibition runs from February 4-27, and Clive is delighted to be part of it: “Everything seems to be happening for me at once. I did promise to my wife Sidonie that this would be the year!

“As an artist for me the past two or three months have not been without some interesting creative developments. To begin with two of my paintings and paintings by my daughter Tabitha have been included in South Downs Showcase, a book about the artists and composers and writers that have stemmed from the South Downs. There are very few artists from the area that have been included in this book

“And secondly 2022 is for me a milestone as I began painting in 1992 which means that I’ve been painting now for 30 years. January is also the month of my birthday.”

Clive was approached by the directors of the Fittleworth Gallery with a view to exhibiting: “This is a brilliant gallery in a beautiful area, and I was more than happy to accept. What a birthday present!

“My art is representational and it is minute observation allied with an instinctive understanding of colour and texture, qualities which are the result of 30 years of being in love with highly detailed paintings.”

As for what he feels he has achieved in his 30 years as an artist, Clive laughs that he has not achieved it yet: “It is one of those elusive things which is perfection. When I’m painting, I get to a point where I think this is absolutely perfect and then the next one comes along and shows me that perhaps the last one was not quite so perfect! But every time I paint now, I feel elated. It makes me feel better. I’m getting people that are just bowled over by what I paint.

“I don’t think I have changed in these 30 years. To begin with I honed in very much on subjects that were local to me here. Originally, I was very Sussex based and I am not anymore. I’m more into painting animals and birds. That’s what has grown on me and the more I paint birds, the more I fall in love with them. I try to put them into less obvious settings.

“I was 52 when I retired from London, and the reason I retired was that I was at the top of the ladder. I started a company with Sidonie and one other person in a little room. We ended up within 20 years with 135 staff and two buildings in Fitzroy Square which is not bad going!

“But it all became too much for me. It just got silly. I couldn’t take it. If I had had a university education, I might have been able to cope with it a bit better but I just decided to quit the business and do what I wanted to do which was to paint.”

Clive doesn’t however wish he had started painting much earlier: “For all its faults working in advertising was a brilliant career and I met so many wonderful people.”

Art has certainly long since outweighed the attractions of advertising, though.

“Painting has become an obsession for me. If I don’t sleep at night, it is because I want to crack on with another painting.

“In advertising you would go to bed completely wrecked. You would go to sleep and you would wake up and the next day would be exactly the same but with this I just look forward so much to painting. Every day is so different.”

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