Born on Merseyside in 1947, David Greenall left school at the age of fifteen and worked in the fishing and building industries before taking up painting in his late twenties. In 1982, Greenall began a year-long foundation course at Norwich School of Art, followed by a fine art printmaking course at Winchester School of Art, receiving a BA Honours Degree at the end of three years in 1986. In 1991 Greenall, with his wife the painter Ruth ODell, moved to their present home in the village of South Dell on the Isle of Lewis.
Greenall's painting and drawings are infused with a knowledge and understanding of light and its happy accidents. Mixing his own colours from raw pigments and blending mediums such as wax, resin, oil and egg tempera, he produces works of great vigour presented with an unerring draughtsmanship.
Ruth ODell graduated from Winchester School of Art with an Honours Degree in 1986, and worked with her partner David Greenall, also a painter, at their studio in Sandgate, Kent, until the birth of their first daughter in1989. Moving in 1991 to the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, a second daughter was born in 1992. For several years, ODell's art was subordinate to the cares of motherhood but, in the last few years, as the girls spend more time in school and have become more independent, ODell has returned to the studio on a more full time basis. Working from notebook studies in pencil, the work is then carried forward in the studio using handmade resin tempera, highlighted with soft pastel. The resulting work can be seen as a personal diary of daily life in Lewis. The winter feeding of sheep in the snow, the first spring lambs, turfing and cutting the peats in early summer. The garden bird table is also used to record the visits of resident and migratory birds, beside the comings and goings of her own domestic pets and children. Colour and line predominate in these small intimate works, full of charm, humour, and vitality, stirring echoes of the small intimist works of Bonnard and Vuillard.
For full CVs, please e-mail greenalld027@gmail.com