Fred Ingrams is fascinated by the Fenlands, the flat and forgotten coastal plains in the East of England depicted in his landscape paintings. Often opting to work en plein air rather than in the studio, the artist juxtaposes fine details with stark and empty horizon lines to capture the aesthetically uncompromising terrain. At a young age he broke away from the traditional imperative to work in oil, and continues to use acrylic as a means to represent the interplay between the overarching strict order and bursts of chaos contained within his chosen terrain.
Education and Early Exhibitions
Paradoxically, Fred has both attended two of London’s top art colleges and been largely self-taught. After attending Camberwell in the early 1980s, the artist was expelled from his MFA at St. Martins Schools of Art. This apparent blow turned out to be a positive step. He took residency in a room above Soho’s iconic Coach & Horses pub, where he spent the next 10 years honing his own style of painting. Throughout the 80s and 90s he had solo exhibitions at iconic London spaces including The Groucho Club, Albemarle Gallery and Bruton Street Gallery. Here, he sold work to a range of local collectors and tastemakers including Francis Bacon.
Fred Ingrams’ Recent Career
Although the artist now lives between the Fens and the Flow Country (another remarkably flat landscape which is becoming a new preoccupation of his), his work continues to preoccupy the London art world. Since 2015 he has shown with Art Bermondsey and One Paved Court. His work Ditch on Mildenhall Fen was also shown at the House of Vans as part of the 2018 Rise Art Prize exhibition.
You can read more about Fred’s inspiration and process in our article profiling Fred Ingrams.
