paintings
biography

Noel Betowski was born in Tilbury, Essex, in 1952. He studied at the Central School of Art, (now Central/St. Martins) gaining a B.A.Hons Fine Art (Painting) 1976. He concluded his education with an A.T.C (a post graduate art teaching course) at the Institute of Education, University College London 1977. After University Noel taught art at “The City Literary Institute” London for a short time until becoming a full time practising artist after his first one man shows in St. Ives and London 1982. He moved to Cornwall in 1987 which was to have a large impact on his work.

Noel Betowski has had many one man exhibitions and been included in numerous mixed shows.  Galleries include “The Royal Academy,” “The National Portrait Gallery.”  He has twice won “The John Constable Landscape Prize” at “The Camden Annual” (3rd in 1982 and 2nd in 1983). He continues to exhibit widely & his work is in private collections worldwide.

Artist Statement

"1990 seemed to be an important year for the direction in my painting. In conjunction with the toy shop painting I started drawings of Mounts Bay. Living in Gulval I walked every day into Penzance town where I had my studio/gallery, I would mentally take note of the boats & ships on that area of water. For a long time I had the urge to put these boats into my paintings but felt that it was too much of a cliché, it was however such a good image, relating to my own childhood where I would daily see shipping going up and down the Thames. I began to see the problem as a challenge, to do something more original with such a cliché. I started by imagining the bay at one moment in time but with all the boats & ships that I had seen over a number of years, gradually the boats became more & more compacted so that from a distance it took on the feeling of movement, waves, current, rhythmic interweaving which directly linked into the music that was a very strong facet of my character." 

"I started to realise that I could bring all the threads of my lifelong interests & history together into one painting, The earlier painting “Offspring” which I believed at the time to be the end of a long series of paintings starting from the “Forsythia” drawing now became the springboard for a whole new direction for my work