Miles Cole

Above the Old Town

2020

Miles Cole gained a BA (Hons) in Fine Art at Gloucester College of Art and Technology. Subsequently, he obtained his MA in fine art at Chelsea School of Art in London, studying alongside Peter Doig and Chris Ofilli. Beyond his painting, he has a successful career as an illustrator, and has worked for such household names as Wall St Journal, The Times Magazine, Daily Telegraph, Mail on Sunday, The Independent, Esquire, The Economist, The Spectator and Time Out. Miles's commercial work meant he neglected his painting for some years, but he was inspired to pursue art by a holiday in St Ives, a seaside town in Cornwall that has inspired an entire school of artists so important in the Modern British Art scene. He returned to painting in 2010. His style is unquestioningly his own, but it is steeped in the Modernism and Abstraction that grew out of the colony of artists who began to establish themselves in St Ives just at the time the Second World War was beginning. Names such as Peter Lanyon, Keith Vaughan, Terry Frost, Paul Feiler, Bryan Wynter, Adrian Heath, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Patrick Heron are all associated with this school, a proud tradition of art grown in England that continues to be an important influence on artists to this day. Cole writes, "I draw inspiration from various sources such as coastal landscape, the city and its architecture and geometric design. These are a catalyst for what then becomes a sensual engagement with the materials - deconstructing and reconstructing shapes into various compositions and textures until a point of departure from the subject matter has been reached."