Talking Techniques-Andrew Roberts & Benjamin Hope

Ahead of a two-man show, the landscape painters open up to MARTHA ALEXANDER about everything they have in common – and everything they don’t

- Martha Alexander

Comparison, they say, is the thief of joy. But not so for two painters whose similarities and differences will hang side-by-side in the form of a two-man show. Benjamin Hope and Andrew Roberts, both landscape artists who work with oil paint, realised the potential for a successful joint exhibition when they were part of a much larger group show last year.

The forthcoming exhibition, Common Ground in London’s Gallery Different, will feature around 70 paintings of places from all over the world, including London, Cornwall, Spain, and Canada. However, when asked what else people can expect from the exhibition, Andrew is mysterious. “I don’t really know what it’ll be like, myself,” he says. “That’s why I’m doing the show: I want to see what it’ll look like.”

“We both use colour in a punchy way to accentuate and inject an element of drama,” he continues, noting that the similarities are not what makes their dynamic interesting. “It is in the differences that our own voices are seen, the differing ways that we create art.”

The Sussex-based artist’s work is all rich impasto surfaces, dynamic glazing techniques and romantic, opulent palettes. He paints wide-open spaces in his studio, based on the memory of a place he has visited, abstracting the shapes as he works. These works have featured in the ING Discerning Eye, the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and a string of solo and group shows.