I have always been fascinated by the way colours sit next to each other, and how what we see can be broken down into lines and curves.

My art has journeyed through an early interest in building layers of colour and scratching back design, to portraiture and landscape, and more recently geometry, perspective and telling stories. I work mainly with oil pastel.

I paint landscapes and portraits instead of taking photos, as a way of remembering places I visit and people I love.

I am also a visual artist, a documentary filmmaker. My eye is drawn to the patterns of shapes that can be found in a frame, to stories and people that help us understand a little bit more.

I find inspiration in the spirals of nature, the straight lines of the city, in my friends, in conversation, in books and YouTube, in the art of others. I love the raw power of Van Gogh, the complex faces of Rembrandt, Chagal’s dreamy blues, the many styles of Picasso, the rough but perfect landscapes of Tom Thomson, the shamanic stories of Brus Rubio, the geometry of Kari Bienert, Howie Wonder and Beatriz Milhazes.

I paint because I need to and have always felt like this: as a child growing up with my mother by the river Penna in India and the river Thames in England; as a young man studying Latin America and storytelling through film; and now in Bogota, where I live with my partner and son, under tall mountains and skyscrapers.

My work has recently been exhibited at The Holy Art’s Oblivion exhibition in London, Nudo 51 and Circuita Armenia in Bogota and by Germany based curator Lily Fürstenow.

Instagram:  @miguelvatios

Behance:  www.behance.net/mikeywatts