Michael Darvill began painting in the early 1960s, first with a desire to be in unison with the spirit of a decade of great change but also in an overwhelming need to create. Although having studied commercial art at the UCLI this approach to a finer art called for a vital new outlook. The new decade provided that. There was much to learn. The process of self-teaching was long and hard and could not be associated or influenced by financial reward. By the end of the sixties he had established the style and technique that mark his work. The urge to create and build ran concurrent with the need to paint. These for some years he turned his attention towards the world of architecture which became his beloved vocation: he qualified as an architect in 1974. Inspired by the music of the sixties and seventies he produced an illustrated book linking his paintings with the poetic lyrics of the rock group The Moody Blues. The book was never published. Learning much from this venture, the artist produced his own illustrated book, Blessings from a Nuclear War, which was published by East-West Publications Ltd in 1987. He has followed this by scripting and illustrating a novel, Milestone 2000, based on the major events leading up to the new millennium. Interests include anything that could satisfactorily add to the vital spiritual balance necessary in life: from literature and the arts, travel and the peoples and cultures of the planet, nature, the environment and ecology, inner and outer space, music and meditation, to the world of sports, especially his passion for the beautiful game of football. All have had their influences. Born in London on 9 February 1937, the artist and architect is proud to celebrate his eightieth year with this publication and associated exhibition covering fifty years and seeks to continue.

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Using a mixture of his own words and paintings Michael Darvill's Travelation is a series of passionate thoughts and images for the spiritual pilgrim. A lifetime of travelling is distilled into chapters that include many of the sights of the world that have left their mark on the author. In his intimate style Michael invites the reader to sit beside him on the back of an elephant as it breaks through the Indian jungle to reveal the wonder that is the tiger; to sit beside him and gaze down as Petra becomes a scene from a thousand years ago. Travelation is not just a series of places visited - the Taj Mahal, The Great Wall of China, the lines of Nazca, the African veldt - rather, it is a traveller's experience of this world of the present and the past. A world in which you will find what you are looking for only if you are true to yourself.