Adam James Butcher

It's not surprising that Adam Butcher turned out to be a professional artist. Firstly his talent. Aged 9 at the Tanglin School, Singapore, his design for the school Christmas Card was chosen and the cards were sold all over the island. Ten years later, doing his foundation year at Middlesex University, UK, he discovered sculpture and obtained his first commission, a full size Spanish fighting bull, which he welded together from discarded car parts and scrap iron. Then at Wimbledon School of art he achieved his degree for a group of wood carvings, one of which was a full-size figure of a well-known Wimbledon vagrant he had befriended. The coveted 2;1 was given, in spite of a strong staff bias against his non-abstract style. Secondly his family background. His grandfather, Leonard Butcher, was an art teacher and skilled landscape painter, who encouraged Adam, taking him out as a boy to paint en plein air. Adam's parents were also highly aware of his talent and supported him, aways believing that he would enter the world of art as a professional. What is even more surprising is the breadth of his experience. Adam was commissioned to provide the sculptures for the film 'The Debt Collector' featuring Billy Connolly. He was selected for a place in the annual Face exhibition organised by the Royal Society of Portrait Sculptors. Commissions and exhibitions have been combined with 15 years spent as an award winning Head of Art in inner London. At Chestnut Grove Academy, one enters the gates and sees a large metal sculpture of amazing grace and fluidity designed by two schoolchildren and brought into existence through their interaction with Adam and a working sculptor. This educational innovation was featured on a full-colour front page in The Independent Educational Supplement. Adam went on to spread this conception of sculpture projects in schools around the UK. And Adam is a much-travelled man. Brought up in France and Singapore, he has extended his excursions to many countries in the Far East, Europe, Africa and the United States, many of these trips taken as the leader of school parties. In the UK, he has spent much time with students on art residential courses at the St Ives School of Painting in Cornwall. Adam is a specialist in portraiture. He creates an instantly recognisable likeness, irrespective of how clearly, on close inspection, his free, casual and impromptu approach verges onto the abstract. Passing from sculpture to collage to painting in the course of his career, Adam has recently begun using the iPad as a particularly effective tool for capturing the moment, both in lightning portraits and in strikingly immediate town, land and seascapes. In this exciting new medium we see the influence of Monet, Bonnard, Van Gogh, Gaugin and more contemporary artists such as Andrew Gifford, David Hockney and Lucien Freud. Adam's work is confident, vibrant and strong, yet always exhibits a quiet, almost uncanny sincerity, a deep love and understanding of his subject matter. He is a naturally shy, modest and introverted person, which makes his achievements in the realm of education even more impressive. Like his grandfather, his work emanates not so much from a conscious intellectual plan as from an intensely acute vision, an instinctive compassion for the amazing world of form we live in. To this respect for the beauty of objects that we all recognise, he adds his own unique signature through his bold interpretation of colour and the bravura and confidence of his stroke-making technique. He sometimes ventures into the abstract, but his first love is nature. In his twenties Adam became a practitioner of Nichiren Buddhism, and this philosophy shows in all his work, in the timelessness caught in the memory of a single moment, and in the dignity he brings to all aspects of humanity and the environment, however humble. In 2014, Adam, his wife Virginie and their children Anais and William, moved to the Riviera Maya in Mexico, where he works as a full-time professional artist. Since the big move, Adam has made a significant impact on an international level. Now a fine artist, Coach, speaker and writer, he has become an world authority on iPad painting and advocate of the mobile digital art movement. Adam regularly contributes to The Huffington Post (US) where he has been sharing his ideas on the creative integration of traditional fine art techniques and new light based digital technologies. Adam is also the creator of the ‘Tools for Creative Breakthroughs’ program, where he helps artists break through their creative barriers, so that they can achieve the fulfilment and recognition they deserve. His recent work focusses on iPad portraits completed from virtual sittings and these are currently being exhibited in the United States, Europe and Asia. This series has inspired his growing interested in exploring the physical and spiritual distance between us. To find out more about his work you can subscribe to his latest Offers and News at www.adamjamesbutcher.com