Where does the North in Northern Art begin? 

   Featuring with increasing regularity in the Northern Art auctions of Wilson's in Nantwich alongside Trevor Grimshaw; Harold Riley, Maurice Wade and Lowry and with an international artistic reputation grounded in a series of successful exhibitions held over the last 13 years in gallery exhibitions both a solo exhibitor or in group exhibitions with paintings alongside notables such as Jack Simcock and Arthur Berry, Ian Pearsall has proved immensely collectible and carved his own niche; perhaps best known locally for his dramatic views of Potteries landmarks wrapped in personal stories through history and heritage. 

 His work is the post-industrial urbanscape of a city shaped by the brutal excavation of coal, the black smoke from the firing of clay and the fire sky from the steel industry, all of which required vast labour housed in the strings of terraced housing that impose itself throughout. It's these Victorian houses that make a significant impact on the work of this artist. 

This subject unifies the portfolio of this artist with the great artist of this vast industrial subject matter. The architecture of the working family. 

   A large number of works were painted at the extensive Sydney Works studio in Longton where he first established himself and subsequently worked for many years. 

  If you were ever on Twitter (X) then you might be familiar with an account named Grim Art which sought out and promoted the art of the industrial powerhouse that is the North of England. Ian twice made the Top 100 in the annual favourites list. 

   However, he is also an accomplished painter of the beautiful North West Staffordshire and South East Cheshire countryside. Since moving to Maer several years ago, where he initially worked out of a unique studio converted from a former working stables which was surrounded by Victorian farm buildings, Ian has produced a rich and diverse catalogue of superb landscape paintings in a variety of colourful media, including paint, oil paint, watercolour and ink drawings.

   Born in 1967 in Salisbury, Rhodesia, Ian Pearsall's journey to becoming a noticeable figure in the Northern Art Scene was anything but linear. After growing up in Malawi, Ian made the pivotal choice at Sixteen to travel to, and live in ancestral territory; North Staffordshire. Ian honed his craft at Newcastle-Under-Lyme College with 'A' Level Painting, and further still with a B/Tec covering a broad spectrum of artistic practice including Photography, Printing, Sculpture, Drawing. He moved downriver to Trent Polytechnic attaining a B.A. (Hons.) 

   Ian travelled (usually by hitchhiking) seeking, and subsequently absorbing a broad European inspiration from Le Louvre; The Uffizi, The Vatican, The National, The Tate and more beyond, before returning to the UK and finding that the true source of inspiration lay in the post-industrial city of Stoke-On-Trent. There are collections of work at both Barewall in Burslem, and Two Doors Studio in Alsager at the present time.  

   In September, the landscape work undertaken in this year and from this area will feature in an exhibition in Nottingham which is a 'long overdue' return to the city of his University education.

From an Article by Reginald Crawford