Art Profile (see TOPHER)

After completing his Foundation degree in Fine Art and Design, Topher went on to attend a BA Hons at Bournemouth University, Dorset. Combining the digital arts, new technology and traditional practical skills Topher started to creates his own visions and explorations into mixed media, refusing to be defined by labels or one discipline.

After leaving university For many years Topher studied under and alongside prestigious award winning artists in the UK including the president of the Royal British Society of Sculptors, Johannes von Stumm and later the founder of Sculptwork, Maria Moorhouse.

As a lifelong volunteer to the arts, Topher successfully taught adults and children alike one to one and in groups until he formalized his teaching in recent years with an adult lecturing qualification which has enabled him to expand his ideas and audience online and in the community, assisting others to find their creative cores and learn the necessary techniques to becoming an artist.

After touring the country with his art and beliefs, Topher eventually relocated to Devon (the county of his birth) in 2010 and set up his first studio. Through a combination of consummate skill and his unique vision of the natural world Topher has not only established his reputation as an artist intent on pushing creative boundaries, but has also gained an enthusiastic following for his popular one-off digital and physical works.

The inspiration for most of Topher's recent work begins in the forms of the landscape of his immediate surroundings in South Devon. His works are directly affected by the scale of his surroundings and the colours of the changing seasons, and the subject of his work captures both the broad range of endless woodlands, the deep delves of the stoney earth and the microscopic of the natural world.

Whilst living a relatively solitary life Topher makes works based on the intense observation of his subject matter. He is particularly interested in creating organic ‘found’ art which has a limited lifespan in its original interpretation but goes onto evolve naturally to reflect the environment around it and becomes a sustainable habitat for the wildlife within.

Topher has always found the process of engaging in the dialogue of public talks, demonstrations and activities inspiring and rewarding – the exchange of ideas being an essential part of his creative life. He is an active volunteer in local conservation and tries to keep his carbon footprint as small as possible.

This well-known mixed media artist has avid followers throughout the world.

Chris is currently working in Conservation, Charity, Volunteer sector and generally saving the world one person, animal and tree at a time!

christopherdnewton@yahoo.co.uk

info@farmable.co.uk

Chris.Newton@Teignbridge.gov.uk

Chris.Newton@discoverhannahs.org

c.newton@btcv.org.uk