Biography

John Paul Hardy was born in Shotley Bridge, County Durham in 1963, and now lives with his wife and daughter in Haydon Bridge, Northumberland.

Paul's interest in art was scuppered in secondary school by a bizarre class-splitting exercise in which he was forced to study Latin instead of art by virtue of scoring a higher exam mark in that subject! He nevertheless went on to achieve an A Level, and had planned to go on to study for a degree in Fine Art at Cleveland College of Art & Design, however a lack of funding meant he was unable to take up the place, and there the trail goes cold.

Real life interevened as Paul went on from there to a short spell in the legal profession, then a degree in Music and Law at Keele University, followed by an MSc in Information Technology and ultimately a career in IT working at Lloyd's of London and British Airways.

The discovery in 2005 that Haydon Bridge had a local artists' society, who staged an annual exhibition in the Community Hall spurred Paul on to dust off his pencils and brushes and submit some works for it. The fact that one of those works was sold convinced him that maybe he hadn't lost it after all, and after a gap of over 20 years Paul is now finally achieving his potential! He still can't speak Latin though.