Mike Norman

Mike was born in the industrial Black Country, living and working there until moving to the Shropshire countryside in the early 1990’s and living there ever since with his wife raising their four children.

Despite “not remembering a time when I wasn’t drawing, when I left school, it wasn’t seen then as a real job” and Mike turned down a place at university to study art in order to join the family in the building trade. It was only as his children grew that Mike had an opportunity to take his artwork seriously.

Working in watercolour, Mike’s artwork is inspired by his own memories as a child growing up in the industrialised Black Country mixed with memories of his kids Shropshire childhood and tales told by his late dad…. a true Black Country mon.

You may notice a thread throughout Mikes work…geese! “All of my work includes at least one goose, (sometimes cleverly hidden), when the kids were younger we lived opposite a goose farm and we would watch them grow and their funny characteristics. We would however have to explain that they all went to new owners at Christmas time”.