David Barnes (1942-2021) was born in Africa and spent his early childhood there. He qualified as a chartered accountant and spent most of his working life in professional practice. In his forties David took an Open University degree and then worked for several years as a tutor for the Open University, running seminars in the UK, Europe and Africa on financial management on the MBA programme.
Although he enjoyed art at school and has been an art collector for many years, it was not until 2006 that he began to paint seriously. His admiration for the work of Welsh artist Kyffin Williams had an obvious impact on his earliest paintings. However his eagerness to learn took him further afield where he drew from many other great painters – Van Gogh in particular, who also made strong use of the palette knife.
As a result David has quickly developed a style of his own. While much of his work captures the moody Welsh landscape he has gradually included a more colourful palette and travelled further afield for inspiration to include Scotland, Cornwall and Ireland. He is also an enthusiastic painter of still life subjects. His work has now been exhibited at a number of leading British Art Galleries.