Born in Lancashire, and originally guided by a Scottish school art teacher, MJ Illingworth's talent has now matured and his work is sending out vibrations from his base in the Borders.

Over a period of 20 years, Illingworth has worked towards capturing the effects of musical sound on canvas so that his paintings resonate with the viewer.

In his 20s, he realised that colours, shapes and forms easily came to mind when he was listening to music.

During his time as a Buddhist Monk he then went on to train in visualisation and meditation techniques that enabled him to deepen his understanding of the effects of colour and sound on the mind.

Illingworth then studied how other artists had worked with colour; it was then that Van Gogh and Kandinsky had a profound effect in developing his own quite unique painting style.

Illingworth realised that in the same way a musician is able to compose sounds to evoke moods and emotion, the artist needs true freedom to achieve harmonious effects on the canvas.

Subsequently, this self-taught artist broke away from the constraints of what he calls 'manicured' art and template techniques, and began to tune in to an artistic ability that could freely arise through the understanding and use of music.

Often abstract, sometimes representational, the clear and direct appeal of Illingworth's paintings is meaningful abstractive colour.
Each artwork gives an almost inexplicable sense of sound and feeling through the composition, combination and choice of colours.

MJ Illingworth's work can be seen at his solo exhibition "Continuum" at McHardy's in Peebles from July 7-28.