The Game So Far

Paul Lancaster has spent most of his career as an advertising art director and designer in North West England, but always promised himself that one day he would pursue his cherished pastime of painting.

It maybe that the inspiration for Paul’s series of admired ‘Fields of Dreams’ contemporary landscapes, which uniquely feature goal posts as a compositional focal point, was because Paul’s father was once a goalkeeper who played in the early 1950’s for Manchester United. “I was always aware of the iconic symbolism these simple structures represent to anyone who is interested in football. I knew how they’d dictated the fortunes of players like my father, but also to the experiences of millions of spectators and fans where football provides a regular emotional release and euphoria from the everyday.”  

Paul’s approach to tones and texture are equally learnt from his career as a graphic designer, where the use of a limited but tonally harmonious colour palette is the key to a successful design or painting. This also allows Paul to produce a beautiful variety of different coloured landscapes under his ‘Fields of Dreams’ concept, sometimes with semi-surreal vistas or perhaps deliberately visually jarring layouts that more often than not feature a ‘principal tree’ against an atmospheric moody sky.

Paul feels that the only limit to his ‘Fields of Dreams’ landscapes are his imagination which is constantly fuelled by seeing goal posts in an unusual or unexpected place.“When I see them, in an urban or rural landscape, they instantly take me back to my childhood days, playing for hours with friends and dreaming of scoring that cup final winner”.  I doubt he’s on his own.