NEW work by Kentmere House favourite John Thornton is on show at the York gallery under the title of Horizons until June.

Gallery owner Ann Petherick first discovered John’s work in an open exhibition in Hull ten years ago. Using her well-honed detective skills for finding talented but under-the-radar artists, she tracked him down and went to meet him.

“It was the beginning of a partnership that has continued very successfully to this day,” says Ann. “Seldom, if ever, have I met anyone who doesn’t respond favourably to John’s work. Its compelling serenity seems to strike a chord with just about everyone, even those who are not normally attracted to seascapes but who appreciate that John’s seas are alive and real.

“His powerful and dramatic seascapes enable you to hear the roar of the sea and to feel you’re standing on the edge of the cliff or beach, whereas his quiet woodland scenes have a contrasting calm and peaceful atmosphere, also often incorporating water,” says Ann.

John brings energy and drive to his work, and water is the element that fascinates him most. “Every time you look at the sea it is different: different light, different wind speed, different weather conditions and different movement,” he says.

His work is spontaneous and intuitive, in keeping with his working philosophy. “When I start a painting in the morning I have to have something to show for it at the end of the day,” he says.

John had entered the Hull exhibition a decade ago on a whim and was amazed, when he rang to arrange to collect his work, to be told that both had sold and he was joint prize winner. Since then he has become a full-time artist, been invited to join the Royal Society of Marine Artists in London and showed in galleries across the country.

Despite ten years of success, he still feels excitement whenever he sells a painting. “More important than the money is the thought that someone has chosen to spend their hard-earned cash on my work,” he says.

John spent much of his working life as a joiner, like his father and grandfather, but interspersed with a variety of jobs, such as selling leather clothes in Chelsea in the Sixties, living in a hippy colony in Cornwall and travelling to Morocco in a van.

Not until the mid-Seventies did he make his way back to Yorkshire, to a 17th century riverside house in Selby that was originally home to his grandfather, then his parents, next himself and his sisters, and now John and his family: a true family house and one of the oldest houses in the town. The influence of his love of the sea is all around in his home. He works from a studio in the garden, surrounded by fishing nets, glass floats and pieces of flotsam and jetsam picked up along the coast, all of which may one day make its way on to a painting.

His seascapes are worked in a combination of watercolour, ink and acrylic, with whatever found material comes to hand used to add texture: sand, grasses, shells and rope. “After all, nothing on a beach is flat,” he says. “The beach is always moving.”

His mixed-media woodland scenes add seeds and grasses to the mix, but most of his work is inspired by the North Yorkshire coast with occasional forays to Cornwall. Above all, John loves to discover quiet, unknown beaches along the East coast, the best being those where the access is extremely difficult. “It means there’s no one there,” he reasons.

As well as paint, he still works in wood, making life-size carvings of birds from pieces of driftwood, with beaks and legs shaped from the corroded metal rods from the Second World War reinforced concrete defences found on his beach-combing trips.

This weekend and next weekend offer ideal Easter holiday chances to see his new Horizons at Kentmere House, in Scarcroft Hill; open both Saturdays and Sundays from 11am to 5pm. The gallery also opens every Thursday, 6pm to 9pm, and at other times by arrangement on 01904 656507; John Thornton’s paintings are on sale at £350 to £3,000.