Artist Gary Bennett doesn’t know how a painting is going to turn out when he sits down in his studio at his historic farmhouse in Santon.

But far from that worrying him, it’s all part of the process of connecting with both nature and harnessing the lifetime of memories he has collected.

The results of his latest work have gone on display at the Hodgson Loom Gallery, in Laxey. ‘Angel Fields’ comprises of a collection of abstract seascapes and landscape watercolour paintings.

Explaining the process, Gary said: ‘I have a photographic memory for atmosphere so I really concentrate on that. They’ve all been banked in my head.

‘I’m sitting down and thinking about atmosphere and start applying paint and things start showing themselves and I go with that.

‘The painting will live and then it can die and then you keep working and it comes alive again. When it’s resolved you know it’s resolved and you want to walk away.’

He added: ‘A lot of the paintings are never 100% finished in a detailed way but I don’t start frittering about and fiddling, I just leave it.

‘I think where that moment was and the place you were in is enough and the viewer can fill in the blanks.’

Gary only spots some details when he goes back and looks at it again. ‘Even when the image is framed up and on the wall you can be looking at things fresh because everything seems to move,’ he said.

When Gary is painting he is completely absorbed in the moment. Any distraction can be a disaster.

‘If I get a phone call that’s me snookered,’ he said.

He has to wait until he can feel the atmosphere building up inside him again.

‘I don’t get artist’s blocks. I get periods of time when I’m absorbed in everything and building up my tank of inspiration and these atmospheres. That’s what I’m painting - I’m painting not so much the trees as the light and atmosphere that’s between them.’

Gary explained that he started to connect with nature when he moved to the farmhouse two years ago.

‘I think every day how lucky I am to live in this place,’ he said.

His studio sits amongst an acre of woodland. He sees the sun rise over a Neolithic site, and the light shine through the trees.

And he follows the light of the sun until it sets over South Barrule, a view he enjoys from upstairs.

The landscapes on display are inspired by the woodland and the neighbouring farm fields.

And in fact the name of the exhibition is based on Gary misreading neighbouring Angle field on the map.

It comes as no surprise to Gary that his painting has taken him in the direction of seascapes as he has always lived near the sea.

He was born by the Giant’s Causeway on the North Antrim coast of Northern Ireland.

‘As a boy I used to play around the rocks and do a bit of fishing so I know the sea very, very well,’ he said.

His military background also means he’s very observant of the weather. ‘You get to know how many pairs of socks you might need!’ he said. ‘You tend to see the weather, the atmosphere.’

Gary sees his abstract watercolours as a ‘great escape’ from his previous work as a war painter.

He has worked closely with several armed forces veterans charities over the past decade, helping to raise the profile and much-needed funds of many of these organisations and the people they help.

In 2013, Gary opened his exhibition ‘Shadow of the Bomb’, after being named as the official war artist for the British Nuclear Test Veterans.

Two of his paintings were exhibited at Whitehall and one at Brunel University.

‘Some of these little paintings I call my e-scapes instead of landscapes and seascapes because it got me away from darkness,’ he said. ‘But I’d say you can still see me in a lot of these images.

‘I don’t think you can have light without the darkness.’

His distinctive abstract style, building up layers of watercolour, has developed after completing a degree in fine art at University College Isle of Man. The more you look into his paintings, the more you see.

He said the degree ‘was like opening up a window to a new universe’. It’s a departure from his previous style of creating a piece that ‘looks like a photograph’.

‘I use four main colours in my palette but it’s what they make and what I can make them do that interests me,’ he said.

‘I’m interested in manipulating paint.

As a collector he’s also interested in reproductions as they are the ‘bane of a collector’s life’. ‘I think what happened was I started developing techniques that would make it extremely difficult to copy,’ he said.

• The exhibition continues until July 29. It is open Monday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm.