NORTHUMBRIAN artist Matt Forster is making a return visit to a Harpenden gallery with his distinctive watercolour painting.

The exhibition runs at the A&K Wilson Gallery in Station Approach, Harpenden, from next Tuesday, May 3, until May 31.

Gallery owner Drew Wilson said of last year’s exhibition: “In the normal course of events it takes a few years of exhibiting for an artist to build up a good base of collectors. But Matt seemed to have hit the ground running with people stopping in their tracks as they walked past and coming in to buy.

“In fact the exhibition ended up being our best-ever debut show. So clearly we had to have him back!”

Born in Oxford in 1975, Matt studied at Newcastle College of Art and Design where he developed his style of painting which modernises what is traditionally seen as the preserve of the Sunday painter.

He pares down the landscape, condensing it until all that remains are the most basic elements.

He said: “The technique is best thought of as being like silkscreen printing. I paint five layers of colours in a set shape on top of each other, that way they mix on the paper.

“These aren’t spontaneous paintings, I have to be really careful planning them out.”