Born in Warwickshire in 1969, I have been surrounded by art from an early age – my mother is a ceramicist and my father is a well-respected London-based painter.
I studied at Bournville School of Art before graduating with a BA honours degree from Wimbledon School of Art in 1991, later winning a placement as a resident artist at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.
I’ve always loved architecture, and have over the years worked in many old buildings seeped in history, Amsterdam being no exception. My time living back in London required my practical skills in property maintenance, and I found this intimacy with ‘lived in’ spaces has ignited my focus as an artist to paint buildings. I take much inspiration from painters such as Edward Hopper, Giorgio Morandi and David Prentice as well as the photography of David Goldblatt, Andreas Gursky and Russell Watkins.

I occasionally work plein air, but mostly it’s back in the studio. I have no problems working from photography, and since the advent of all things digital find the speed and ease of immediate reference invaluable in my creations. By looking at my painting ‘Shadowlands’ (in the portfolio ‘Smaller Works’) I created very strong contrasts by first altering my reference photo with a phone app!

I love to paint scenes around dusk and dawn, the ‘blue hours’ where colours merge, change, and conjure new worlds around us.

My work can be found in public and private collections not only in the UK, but in the USA, Hong Kong, Japan and the Netherlands. I have appeared as a heat finalist in the Sky Arts programme Landscape Artist of The Year in 2018 and 2019.

I divide my time between rural Northamptonshire and Lymington in Hampshire. I am a tutor to a small group of students, and am a qualified picture framer (Guild Certified Framer). My daughter Ella, 11, is a budding artist too, recently a runner up in an environmental art competition for Friends of The Earth. You can follow me on twitter and instagram @hallidayfineart and on facebook with my page Archipainting where I regularly posts information on developing work.