John Dyer was appointed as the Official Artist in residence for the UK’s Eden Project in 2000. John worked with eden and its project partners for over a decade.

“Working as a ‘Painter in Residence’ at the Eden Project has given John an unprecedented insight into the project and the people who made it happen. Working at Watering Lane Nursery and the Biomes at Eden since November 2000 John has had a unique painting experience.” Art Director Eden Project

John Dyer is the painter in residence for the Eden Project in Cornwall. John has worked with the project from the year 2000 to the present day and has not only recorded the planting of the biomes but has travelled across the world to study the plants in their natural habitats. The Eden Project have used John’s work to help to tell their ‘plant people’ stories and a major exhibition was held for world food day in October 2002 of his italian crop paintings. John’s work continues with Eden as he works towards his ‘Crops Project’ exhibition.

http://www.johndyer.info/eden.html

John Dyer’s first residency on Tresco was in 2001,

Tresco a Cornish Paradise.
“The Tresco Estate and Robert Dorrien-Smith very kindly agreed to host us on the island during May 2001 and offered us unprecedented access to the Abbey Gardens to facilitate our paintings.

The Abbey Gardens are pure imagination and unabashed visual spectacle. They look like no other place.

We first set foot on Tresco during May 2001 landing on a rather damp and green island and not really knowing what to expect. Soon we felt at home and took over part of the Abbey as a makeshift studio and painting store. The following day was all sun and smiles. We painted like children in a sweet shop it was delightful. Painting outside, in Cornwall, together and in an unbelievably beautiful place is what it is all about for us. The simple pleasure of looking, and interpreting and then painting with enthusiasm and energy to put down our vision for us and other people to enjoy is why we both paint. Through the process of painting, the environment slowly unravels and you gain a greater understanding of place and time. We always meet interesting characters and see wonderful things while painting the world as it slowly drifts past the canvas. Tresco was no exception with human / plant and animal life presenting equally interesting subjects for us. Echiums towering above our heads, forests of palms, cacti, date palms grown to full size, succulents hanging from every conceivable place, colour, bright colour everywhere and birds, birds, birds. It really is a cornish paradise. The days are long at the end of May and allow many hours of painting time, so we would start our work just after breakfast by walking out of the Abbey and straight into paradise – before the gates opened. So for the first couple of hours each day the gardens where ours. The same happened in the evening; after 4pm the gardens start to empty and between 5pm and 8pm we would paint in the glorious early summer evening sun watching the gardens in a totally undisturbed way. Invariably during these private viewings of the gardens we would encounter Topper and Batty with Frank in hot pursuit. Topper is a small white dog and Batty is a black Labrador who live in the Abbey while Frank is one of Tresco’s finest characters. Frank now retired used to be a gardener at the Abbey for many years and has many a tale to tell while he is on his perpetual hunt for Topper the mischievous little dog. Every day we would be engaged in animated tales about the island and the gardens and it was these conversations that have made us feel a real connection to the place. The plants that manage to grow in the gardens are remarkable, but it is even more remarkable when compared to the natural landscape and flora of the island. Tresco has a very open feel to it, vast expanses of sea and sky, white sands only interrupted by the odd sea bird, and night skies that have fallen straight from the pages of a story book. So to contrast with our busy energy packed bursting with life garden paintings we have been working on a series of paintings that capture the essence of the coastline. The beach at Pentle Bay literally sparkles with light. If you dip your hand into the sand it comes out as if covered in glitter. It is this luminosity and light that give Tresco its special appeal. Tresco has presented a challenging subject – one moment there is so much to paint that it becomes almost an impossibility and the next it presents huge open expanses of colour and the illusive sense of space and infinity.” John Dyer

“John is a very exciting ‘plein-air’ painter who has a large global following. He is ‘Painter in residence’ at the Eden Project, and is firmly at the forefront of contemporary Cornish art.” Gallery Tresco 2005

http://www.johndyergallery.co.uk/exhibition/roundabouttresco/index.html

John Dyer and Alan Titchmarsh became firm friends during his arts residency at the BBC Gardeners’ World garden owned by Alan Titchmarsh. Alan acquired a number of John’s originals and two were selected as limited edition prints which both the artist and Alan Ticthmarsh signed. Part of the profits from this collaboration went to supporting primary school gardens around the UK. John and Alan teamed up for a live talk to 500 people at The Eden Project in Cornwall to present the paintings.

John Dyer was asked to help to launch the Beat Poverty Campaign for Save the Children at the Eden Project on 7th October 2003. Visitors to the project saw John at work in the Humid Tropics Biome painting a new Eden painting highlighting the importance of rice.

Each person that signed up to the campaign on the day at Eden was included in the historical painting.

The painting, ‘Rice and Hope’, measures 33 x 40 inches, acrylic on board and is now part of the permanent collection of art at Save the Children UK in London.

John Dyer was also the resident artist for the UN year of Rice
working at the International Rice Research Institute, IRRI, in the Philippines. Launching the International Year of Rice 2004, the Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Dr Jacques Diouf, said that “rice is the staple food for over half of the world’s population” but warned that “its production is facing serious
constraints.”

Limited Edition Signed prints of the painting were sold through Save The Children and raised in excess of £6000 for the campaign which would have been enough to provide over 500 breeding pairs of sheep/goats to the third world.

John Dyer was appointed as the Official South West England Artist in residence for the UK’s Darwin 200 Celebrations in 2009.

John worked extensively at Newquay Zoo and also travelled to peru as part of the residency. His final exhibition was shown at Falmouth Art Gallery.

“My Darwin 200 year has taken me around the world. I explored the high Andes in Peru, painted a series of bird paintings which were used for the ballet in France, helped to inspire nearly 200 children to paint their own Darwin paintings and of course I have had the most marvelous experiences on my days at the Zoo in Newquay with my easel covered in lemurs and my feet being nibbled by meerkats ! I hope the paintings will inspire and excite and that they will bring continued enjoyment to those who choose to adopt them for the future.”

John Dyer 2009

https://www.johndyergallery.co.uk/exhibition/Darwin200/darwinevent.html

John Dyer spent a week with Kim Wilde and her family exploring their connections to organic gardening and painting in their garden. The resulting paintings were exhibited at Kim Wilde’s property for a Rock and Roll summer celebration event and also formed the basis of magazine articles. In 2012 the paintings were exhibited by the National Trust for the ‘Global Gardens’ exhibition and project.

“A long awaited ‘tropical garden’ was going to be built the same week as our ‘artist in residence’ had come to paint, and I was worried the mayhem might distract him. He instantly put us at our ease, and wandered off into the garden to find a place to sit and paint. Each day he arrived early, and painted huge canvases full of vibrant colour, and every day we were entranced. Our children were captivated not only by the paintings, but by John himself, who took time to involve them. The results were magical, and perfectly captured the special atmosphere we feel living in this beautiful place, on a hill somewhere in Hertfordshire.

I have always had immense respect for anyone who chooses to take time to interpret our world for us through painting, and feel especially privileged to have hosted such an inspired artist in our back garden !

My lasting memory of him will be of him and his wife Jo jiving wildly at the party which we threw to celebrate the new garden. His paintings decorated our home for the night, but I would have gladly have given them a home for life !”

Kim Wilde

“British painter John Dyer produced a series of paintings that interpreted the relationships among people, the rice plant, and the rice ecosystem. The paintings are an extension of the work that John – the painter in residence for the Eden Biodome project in Cornwall – carried out last year for the Save the Children Fund. Painted for the United Nationa International Year of Rice, John hopes his paintings will draw attention to the importance of rice and its impact on the environment.”

International Rice Research Institute

John Dyer was appointed as the artist in residence for the BBC Gardeners’ World Live event in Birmingham.

John painted several new paintings of the show gardens and also the crowds and colour of the event.

During the event John Dyer and Alan Titchmarsh did a live presentation and talk to a talk of several hundred on the theme of ‘painting and planting’.

Alan Ticthmarsh’s company also built a huge presentation stand to support the artist’s work and launched a new range of John Dyer limited edition prints and home ware items.

John Dyer has been the Artist in Residence for three of the largest Sail Training International Tall Ships Regattas in the UK. The first regatta that John was appointed to was the 1998 Cutty Sark Regatta. John painted a new series of Tall Ships paintings and launched the official limited edition print for the event. In 2008 John was also asked to be the regatta’s artist for the Funchal 500 Regatta. John exhibited his work in the National Maritime Museum Cornwall and also ran a community arts project. In 2014 John was again asked to contribute as the Artist in Residence for the Falmouth – Royal Greenwich Tall Ships Regatta. For the 2014 regatta John is exhibiting his work at Falmouth Art Gallery and the National Maritime Museum Cornwall. An even larger community arts project, The BIG Art & Storytelling Tall Ships Project was launched for the event.

“We asked John Dyer to paint bananas because they are a smallholder crop – grown in people’s back gardens and farms along with lots of other fruits and vegetables. John’s pictures are all about diversity and bringing out what might pass unseen. In this case, it seems to have been scorpions!”

“John Dyer, the UK artist much publicized through work with Alan Titchmarsh and the Eden Project, travelled to Costa Rica especially for INIBAP to paint the front cover of this year’s annual report “Jungle bananas”. John Dyer is well known for his exuberant and optimistic paintings that lift the human spirit and explode with colour and life. His portrayal of traditional banana agriculture in Costa Rica is richly illustrative of the animal life that shares the space with growing crops. The Latin American insect fauna evidently made a big impression! John Dyer’s work has made him one of the UK’s most popular artists and is published world wide. As ‘painter in residence’ at the Eden Project, with whom INIBAP works closely, John will hopefully be involved in future projects on banana.”

Charlotte Lusty, International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain.

In 2007 John Dyer was invited to be the artist in residence with artist Joanne Short on St Michael’s Mount. The artists lived on the island for a full week and were able to experience the true magic of the island. It was a unique project and the final exhibition was held on St Michael’s Mount.

“It is a great pleasure to host this exhibition by John Dyer and Joanne Short, which is a product of their stay on St Michael’s Mount during May last year. While the island as a whole has been painted exhaustively over the years, the gardens and grounds have received much less attention. I am delighted therefore to see the gardens given their due and depicted so vividly in these paintings. It is a new venture for us to hold an event like this in the Island and I hope you enjoy the venue. The Café sits next to the entrance to the gardens, which I hope you might visit also to see some of the subject matter that inspired the artistic work on show.”

James St Aubyn

http://www.johndyergallery.co.uk/exhibition/paintingsfromasmallisland/

During April and May John has be joined by a film crew from ITV who have filmed him paintingin the garden at Antony House, and The Tresco Abbey Gardens. The footage will form part of a new series exploring artists and gardens which is due to be screened in October 2005. The film crew also filmed John’s wife Joanne Short and daughter Martha-Lilly Dyer painting in Tresco Abbey Gardens

“THE PAINTED GARDEN takes us on a journey through some of the most important gardens in the region and beyond which continue to inspire today. The series also takes the opportunity to celebrate the work of some of the region’s most popular artists, such as John Dyer, who has been greatly inspired by the colours and structures of gardens. Joining Chris are artist garden historian Toby Musgrave, art historian Sam Smiles and garden designer Penelope Hobhouse.”

Peter Hampel the art director of Eden and John Dyer, Eden’s ‘Painter in Residence’ worked together to facilitate John painting a new ‘iconic’ painting of this huge event. Signed prints available now from The John Dyer Gallery.

“We decided that one key painting would be far more powerful than a series of smaller paintings, so Eden organised a special area for me to work from so that I could see the whole event, feel the music, watch the crowd, but have my own space to create in. I wanted to capture the African energy of the performances and to set this off against the world beating architecture of Eden, and I am delighted by the result.

The painting was taken down into the crowds and caused quite a stir. It is amazing how many people have a digital camera hidden in their pockets ! All of the Eden directors including Tim Smit gathered to see the new painting which was received with great enthusiasm, and I hope that the image of the painting will be used to promote Africa and Eden.”John Dyer 2005.

John Dyer toured Japan in 2007 when his work was exhibited across 9 galleries from Kyoto to Tokyo. Making public appearances and personally signing photos for his many Japanese fans.

An exhibition titled “Happy Summer Paradise” has been on tour in nine of Japan’s most prestigious gallery spaces in Kyoto, Kobe, Osaka & Tokyo. John Dyer made personal appearances at six of the venues.

One of the galleries is in the world famous ‘Matsuya’ store in the Ginza district of Tokyo. This store and the district are the equivalent of Park Avenue in New York and is the center for business and high quality retail and art outlets.

“This has been a fantastic experience for me – people have travelled from all over Japan to meet me on the tour and it has been incredibly interesting to listen to my new Japanese collectors discussing my work. We have launched a vibrant new range of limited edition prints in Japan to accompany the exhibition and the images of St Ives and the Helford Passage are very popular. Many collectors are buying my print of the Helford Passage with a yellow sky to hang on the west wall of their homes as in Japan a yellow sky hung on the West will will bring the family good fortune.” John Dyer.

In 2006 John Dyer was invited to work as the Artist in Residence for the ecological wine company Banrock Station in Australia. John worked in the outback recording the wildlife stories connected to the project.

The final exhibition of work was displayed at a special evening at the Eden Project with over 800 people attending to listen to the artist and see the new works.

“‘John Dyer’s visit was a pleasure and his paintings of Banrock are truly inspirational. His use of colour and the animals and plants he has featured in his pictures are fantastic… They are just like Banrock…..the more you look the more you discover!” Tony Sharley. Manager of Banrock Station

John Dyer was asked by Girlguiding South West England to complete an important new celebration painting for the centenary of the guides in 2010.

“We are thrilled to announce our partnership with the celebrated Cornish artist, John Dyer. John’s paintings are contemporary, vibrant, fun and full of life, qualities which could equally apply to Guiding as we reach our Centenary.”
Gill Slocombe Chief Commissioner.

John created a triptych painting that celebrates the Centenary. Each painting focuses on one of the ages of guiding – The first painting features mainly Rainbows, the second Brownies and finally the Guides around a roaring camp fire.

The official limited edition print was made from John’s painting and 100 special Art Mugs were commissioned from the artist to present to the top 100 girl guides.

In 2007 John Dyer moved with his family to the Côte d’Azur to live in Menton about 40 minutes from Monaco. Carolyn Hanbury of the Giardini Hanbury kindly lent them the original primary school at La Mortola to use as a studio for two years. This studio overlooked the wonder Giardini Hanbury . The final exhibition of paintings was held in Monaco.

“Joanne Short and John Dyer are two of Cornwall’s best loved artists. Their work has now gained a strong international following. Although their styles are uniquely individual and instantly recognisable, every place they visit throughout the world takes their work in new and exciting directions. Both artists are able to absorb the joys and wonders of each area and can capture the true character of a locality. Their year on the Côte d’Azur has successfully produced some of their most exciting work. The exotic flora, bright Mediterranean colours and spectacular landscapes have been interpreted by Jo and John in very different, but complimentary ways. Jo skilfully captures the landscape in rich intricate patterns, weaving a tapestry of colour that delights the eye. John captures the essence of a locality with great love and humour. Swimmers, sunbathers, dogs and seagulls are all portrayed with his characteristic zest for life. The two artists share an amazing ability to paint pictures that can transform the atmosphere in positive ways.

Living with their work on a daily basis, like I and so many collectors do, it is impossible not to be uplifted every time one enters the room.

I hope you enjoy this collection from the Riviera as much as I do.”

Brian Stewart, 2008

http://www.johndyergallery.co.uk/monaco/exhibitionsmonaco/singingandzinging/index.html

During May 2009 for the United Nations Year of the Potato, CIP hosted the UK artist John Dyer in Peru while he visited the Potato Park in Pisac, and Puno and Lake Titicaca, to paint scenes of the Peruvian potato harvest, life surrounding potatoes in the Andes and the potato festival in Taquile.

The result is a series of delightful images that CIP will be making good use of in the future. John Dyer is one of the UK’s most well-known open-air painters. His work is collected internationally and his paintings have been the subject of popular television programs and a wide range of merchandise. He is also one of the UK’s best known international environmental artists.” 

International Potato Center, Peru

John Dyer was selected to appear in the prestigious Monte-Carlo SBM Film “One year in Monte-Carlo”.The new film, by film maker Jeff Lehalle, focuses on the ‘Art of Living’ in the principality of Monaco. Part of the promotional film features the Monaco Classic week and includes footage of artist John Dyer painting the amazing sailing boats and sparkling mediterranean waters. The film is shown on the official Visit Monaco web site each year in September/October and is also screened all around the Principality of Monaco.

“My new painting, that features in this prestigious film, is part of a new collection of work based on Monte-Carlo and the classic boats. It was a great experience working with Jeff on this sequence and to interpret this world class event onto canvas.” John Dyer 2010.

In 2012 John Dyer was appointed as the Artist in Residence for the Heritage Lottery Funded Gyllyngdune Gardens. John painted many new canvases of the gardens and landscape and exhibited them at a special event. John also ran a large community arts project with celebrity Kim Wilde for the event.

“Encouraging our children to appreciate the natural world around them is a wonderful way to stimulate and excite them, as well as educate them. I have encouraged both our children into the garden since they were toddlers, treating the garden as an extension of our house.

Out there in the sunshine we have played, planted and painted together, the garden serving as a family space to spend quality time with each other…time for us all to smell the roses in our otherwise busy lives!

I am really excited to see the paintings for the Global Garden project, and delighted John asked me to be involved. We loved having him stay here a few years back, where he painted a series of stunning canvases of our beloved garden. I have a lovely photo of John, Rose (5) and Harry (7) crouching over one of John’s paintings, which hangs in Rose’s room as a reminder of an inspiring few days in our summer garden.”

Kim Wilde

In 2014 John Dyer was asked to lead a national arts project for children in the UK. The project was based on his latest painting for the Tall Ships regatta. This painting inspired five professional writers to make their own responses and then this new set of creative work was used to inspire thousands of children.

“The BIG Art & Storytelling Tall Ships Project is charismatic. John Dyer’s new Tall Ships painting, combined with professional storytelling, creates an irresistible hub for creativity to flourish.”

Philip Mould OBE. BBC Art Expert Fake or Fortune.

“This is a brilliant, original competition. John Dyer’s picture is bursting with character, life and colour – I can’t wait to see what stories it inspires: pictures, stories, poems, anything. I can’t wait to get going myself…”
Damian Dibben – Author of the History Keepers

“I’m writing the opening scene of a play to inspire ideas in younger writers, passing the creative baton on to them to continue the story forward. ‘Tall Ships & Small Ships 2014’ is such a vibrant and detailed painting, full of hundreds of potential characters and stories, interactions and events, I’m sure the young guys and girls embarking on this writing adventure will have plenty to get their teeth into…”
James Graham – National Theatre Playwright

“A colourful explosion of words from this vibrant painted image. Both inspired by John Dyer’s work and also it’s own creative entity. Let’s get writing in a free world that is as large as our imagination can possibly be! The fun part is in the creating. Characters, stories, rhyme, the way words sound together. Let’s play with words in a way that is as exciting to read and hear as John’s painting is to look at. I wrote my first poem age 7 and I’ve still got it now. Encourage yourself. Value everything you make. The amazing opportunity to write and create is always there. Let’s make the most of it!”
Maxwell Golden – Hip Hop Poet

“John Dyer’s painting is entirely entrancing, engrossing. It opens up new worlds.”
Dea Birkett – Journalist and Writer – Director of Kids in Museums

“We are so pleased to be working with John Dyer again and we are grateful for his support. His enthusiasm and creative flair have added enormously to the event in previous years and to be able to use his new Tall Ships painting on the front cover of the official programme, the official print and as the inspiration for The Big Art & Storytelling Tall Ships Project is wonderful.”
Sam Groom – Festivals and Events Manager at Visit Cornwall