Adair Payne Bio

Adair Payne Bio

Adair Payne is a native of Northern California, growing up in the community of Lincoln against the Sierra Nevada foothills.  He began painting the local countryside at an early age, being commissioned by local collectors and land owners.  While his creative direction wasn't mainstream in the time and place of his youth, he was compelled to speak for the land; calling attention to the natural world around him.


In 1984 Payne received his B.F.A. from Brigham Young University, specializing in graphic design.  After college he relocated to the East Coast, accepting a position with a design firm there.  After 6 years and missing the wide open spaces of the West, he came back home.  Still longing for brush in hand, he gradually transitioned into a career in commercial illustration, specializing in lavishly illustrated story maps for clients including Crystal Cruises, Visa, Intel, Honda, Chrysler, Delta Airlines, Lucent Technologies, and Motorola.


In more recent years, Payne's artistic pursuits have come full-circle, now focusing his creative energy on both his native California landscape and a few other favorite areas, including New England, the Mountain West, and  coastal Brazil. His objective is to record his visual impressions of a rich, unique, and gentle land that is becoming increasingly developed.  The artist's philosophy is fairly straightforward, motivated by a deep connection to the land he knows; returning something of appreciation which he hopes will inspire other who contemplate the landscape.  Consistently Payne's work has a pervasive sense of tranquility, reverence for the natural world, and often an element of solitude and retreat.


While he is essentially self-taught as a painter, his approach to painting has evolved over a lifetime; influenced and informed by years as a graphic designer and illustrator.  A viewer may first notice the artist's attention to detail.  However, the overall design, the visual  energy of the composition, and its emotional impact are his key concerns as he works.  He is equally versatile in watercolor and acrylic, but his large landscape work is always executed in oil since it provides the ideal working properties for his preferred subject matter and style.

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