Kris Mercer Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom

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Contemporary British painter creating aerial landscapes that explore pattern, colour and the quiet structure of place. Working in oils and acrylic, my paintings balance abstraction and representation, capturing the land from above as both memory and geometry.

My work focuses on aerial perspectives of the landscape, drawing on farmland, coastlines and urban edges. From above, familiar places shift into patterns of colour, line and shape, allowing a balance between abstraction and representation. Working in both acrylic and oil, I use each for different qualities — acrylic for its immediacy and ability to build structure quickly, and oil for its depth and stability of colour. This combination allows greater control over tonal relationships and helps avoid the colour shift that can occur as acrylic dries. Each painting develops through a process of refinement — adjusting layers, simplifying forms and strengthening the underlying composition. Rather than describing specific locations precisely, the work aims to hold a sense of place: the quiet order, disruption and rhythm shaped by both natural forces and human intervention. The horizon, where it appears, acts as a point of pause within the work.