Doug Eaton is an abstract landscape painter living in Herefordshire. Having painted regularly since 1977 his career has gone through several phases, moving from fine art initially into commercial design oriented work in the mid 80′s, and back to a studio based fine art practice since 2001.
OE: From your CV it looks like you’ve done an exhibition almost every month since 2001. How much time do you spend marketing and promoting your work?
DE: Yes, I’m working harder now than I’ve ever worked really. I can’t say that I spend an awful lot of time marketing, but I did spend an awful lot of money to get what I thought was a good looking website and really that has been such a major thing for me. I’m in catalogues such as h.Art (local open studios guide) and so on, I belong to the Forest Open Studios. I’ve been quite busy, but I suppose I’ve really been reliant upon galleries to promote my work.
OE: Tell us more about that.
DE: It’s actually different to being hung on a wall. I’ve had one gallery in particular and now another, Green Stage, that have spent a lot of time promoting my stuff and I’m very grateful for that.
OE: How have you gone about getting into galleries?
DE: I think I’ve been extraordinarily lucky, relatively speaking they’ve all come to me. I must admit the h.Art has been very much responsible for that, first a Hereford gallery and then others have got hold of me, sometimes due to the h.Art website, sometimes through my own site, but there’s a little thread there that seems to run through the h.Art thing all the time.
OE: It sounds as though you’re a real advocate of Open Studios.
DE: I very much am, although it’s not always about the sales, I see it as a very good way of promoting myself in a very reasonable manner.
OE: I’ve noticed that you’ve also been involved in a number of Open Exhibitions, what’s your view on those?
DE: It’s something I really like the idea of in fact when I started out in 2001 that was my plan really to try to get into Open Exhibitions. I started off with that plan, but it’s gone a bit awry I suppose because what actually happened was I had my own exhibition and joined h.Art. From that the galleries came I started to sell. Not hugely significant amounts, but enough to make me need to get enough work ready for galleries which offered me exhibitions and then I didn’t have enough work for the open exhibitions. What I’m trying to do now is get enough stuff together as a stock so that I can fulfil my commitments rather more in advance.
OE: I noticed in 2007 you won a prize in the h.Art Open Exhibition which included a cash prize as well as an exhibition in the sponsor’s German offices.
DE: Yes, I was very fortunate to win the Rehau Prize. I was very, very grateful for it. I had no prizes in my CV and I’m not of an age where you would think prizes and the like were in any way approachable. I think those things are usually related to people much younger artists in their 20 to 30s. That’s how I view prizes, so it was a great surprise and I was very pleased to accept it. With regard to the exhibition that was purposed, that actually didn’t happen, I think Rehau was undoubtedly experiencing the beginnings of the recession and as a company were very much involved with trying to work their way through that, but never the less they were very pleased with the work, very complimentary to me when I was there and they handed me the £1,000 cheque which they did give me.
OE: Did the notoriety or fact that you won the prize do you any good other than the prize money?
DE: Yes, yes it did it made a big difference to the galleries I was currently in, in as much as every one of them was very pleased that I’d won it. And it made a difference in the way they began to view me and they seemed to be even more on my side when I won the prize.
OE: So you feel it’s still important to be entering competitions and open exhibitions even after you’re represented by or working with galleries?
DE: Yes, if you think about it anything done in a proper competitive field is quite interesting. Undoubtedly the galleries take an interest in what you’re doing. The smaller galleries in particular that are not so involved in the larger commercial world have got quite a personal relationship with all their artists and so on. I think the prizes or getting into a selective exhibition that is well known, or even not so well know, all of those things set someone aside, and therefore the galleries are delighted and happy to exhibit your work and go on. And it shows confidence to a degree, and in every extent it was important because it gave me confidence.
OE: What words of wisdom would you like to share with other artists?
DE: I think the one thing you have to be is confident in the right way, and have a professional attitude really. A belief in yourself, actually, that’s what I mean more than confidence. That can be as quite as you like, but it’s got to be there. And entertaining anything where there might be the chance of an exhibition on the end of it because exhibitions basically are there to do what it says on the tin, getting the work in front of people so people can make their own mind up and you live and die in that experience. It’s these sort of basic things, and then hope that you can lead on…
You can view more of Doug’s work or get in touch with him at: www.dougeaton.co.uk
Open Exhibition 