George Kennedy

George Kennedy was born in 1962 in Dundee, Scotland.

Passionate about painting, George Kennedy is an instinctual artist who uses the medium of oil paints and pastels to evoke the life-force of his subjects.

Whether working to capture a moment, place or person who has sparked his imagination, or in bringing to life a much loved pet in a commissioned painting, George Kennedy relies upon his gut instincts to express the essence of his subject.

Art has been a passion for George ever since he started Primary School and got his hands on the school’s art materials. All through his adolescence and on into adult life he’s kept a sketch pad close in order to set down on paper things that make an impression on his imagination.

Working from his studio near Arbroath, George strives to fulfil his artistic goal: to explore and develop his unique approach to painting. His favourite artists include Degas, Monet, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Vermeer and Frans Hals. Because he has never been formally trained he enjoys the freedom that working outside of established rules brings to his art. At the core of his artistic philosophy is a desire to be natural; to express himself in his own way. In the time George has been painting with oils, his artistic style has developed through a single-minded determination to put past lessons into practise and use his personal passion to develop as an artist.

Instinctively layering the oil paints to evoke texture, he works across the whole painting bringing it alive: layer by layer, brushstroke by brushstroke. You only get life out of a painting if you put life into it.

Unlike most formally trained artists, George’s approach is an emotional one: painting is an inherent part of him. It’s not possible to separate him from his work: without painting, and the freedom of expression it allows him, George would be lost.

It is this depth of feeling and level of personal commitment to each and every project that results in beautiful works of art; and often provokes emotional reactions from his clients. It’s when he sees the happiness on a patron’s face that he knows his professional passion has transformed a photo or an idea into a living, breathing work of art.

George’s work has been shown and sold across Scotland. His first formal exhibition came in 1990, when he displayed his popular series of East Lothian landscapes at the Peter Potter Gallery in Haddington.