Exhibition Reflection 2

As the artworks are being taken down from the first exhibition (see earlier post), others are being put up elsewhere. Earlier this year, I participated in a youth art class organized by the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA). The Class occurred over 2 days, being led by local artist Trevor Newman. The subject of the class was self portraiture.

The first day began with introductions and a viewing of artworks from the AGSA’s permanent collection. Images by prominent Australian artists such as Mike Parr and Ivor Hele were shown among a diverse collection of artist’s styles. Trevor Newman gave a short lecture on the significance and practice of self portraiture and demonstrated some practical art skills. Students returned to their easels, brimming with inspiration and ideas, sheets of paper and charcoal in hand. Each student had a mirror to draw from and a supply of art materials.

Students then began to draw their appearance. My first portrait was done on toned paper with red conte. My intention was for an accurate likeness. I first began by drawing the shape of my head, then massing in the tone and form of the face. The face was separated into roughly 5 tones, the paper tone, white conte, soft red tone, hard red tone and black charcoal. As the likeness emerged, I received comments from instructor Trevor Newman. He was pleased with the emerging likeness and had some advice for getting the tones accurately. As I completed this first portrait, Trevor approached me and instructed me to create another self portrait, this time less concerned with my “bread and butter” traditional approach.
I got new sheets of paper, another colour of conte and began my second drawing. I drew quicker, spontaneously, not concerned with absolute realism. I redrew my head from other angles, giving the impression of movement. I created a third drawing in a similar matter.


The following day Trevor gave an evaluation on the progress of students. Each student was approaching the subject differently. Some drew with soft delicate lines, others drew with force and dynamism, others simplified and some exaggerated. The magnitude of different styles and skills was overwhelming. Trevor was pleased with the progress of my drawings and had succeeded in getting me “out of my comfort zone” and into unknown territory. His persistence and energy for me to branch out and attack the subject anew gave me confidence and vigor.
I completed another self portrait, using the first traditionalist drawings as a prop against the mirror at a skewed angle, to redraw the portrait from a new angle, not using my face as the reference, but using the drawing of my face as reference.
This was conceived as an experiment after having seen Mike Parr explain his process for drawing images such as this image below

Mike Parr

at the Summer Art Scholarship earlier this year.


I created 2 quick drawings in this manner. The second day had concluded and Trevor gave a finishing speech. He was pleased with the progress of all the students and interested in my future plans as an artist.

This experience was rewarding and enjoyable. I felt I was challenged as an artist and that the outcomes of my drawings were successful. I had gained a contact in Trevor Newman and interacted with students my age with a similar interest in drawing.

…….
On Friday the Fourteenth of August, the works of participating students were hung in Carclew Youth Arts Centre. The exhibition was in a large room, and the drawings were all mounted and hung close together. The room was packed with the students and their parents. My artwork was hung as a series of three, the traditionalist drawing on the end and the looser drawings beside it. Although I had outlined the hanging order ( which image next to each image), the images were hung according to colour choice( Red, Blue Red), I had originally intended the realist drawing to be in the middle.

Speeches began at 8pm by Mark Fisher, head of the education department at AGSA who welcomed those attending. He gave a brief overview of the self portraiture course then began to award prizes for participants. The exhibition was a joint exhibition with a life drawing class, and the figure prizes were announced. Mark then announced the winner of the Self Portrait class.

Mark called my name and I accepted the prize to my nervous horror. I accepted the prize (I received the book- LETS FACE IT: THE HISTORY OF THE ARCHIBALD PRIZE, the 2009 Archibald Prize catalogue, a certificate and a gift voucher to the AGSA bookshop) and stopped to have photographs taken. I have an ambivalent attitude to art exhibitions having some element of contest, of winners and losers. On one side, it is fantastic to be rewarded on artistic achievements and hard work, but on another side it can be devastating not winning. Also when it comes to judging artworks, bias is always inherent, and judges often make puzzling decisions.


After I was awarded the prize I was approached by a number of people asking about my intent with the images and future plans regarding art. The experience had similarities to my earlier exhibition (see earlier post). Interacting with strangers who ask very direct personal, probing questions is sometimes difficult. Although I do not feel entirely self conscious, I find myself anxious projecting myself to people I do not know.




The experience was largely pleasant, the artworks were all hung well and the exhibiting space had good light. I received a number of warm compliments and congratulations from people which was nice. Having my artwork hung in a group context was good to see the range of different styles. The experience was a lot of fun and made me feel engaged in the local art world.

Nicolas Uribe

Nicolas Uribe (born 1977) is a contemporary figurative artist who currently resides in Bogotá Columbia.
His images feature multiple figures of the same model, their form often from multiple view points. Interestingly, the subjects face is often created with little significance, sometimes covered or obscured. The pose is always of central importance. Nicolas Uribe’s style has made progression from his artworks dated from 2004. In these earlier works, figures appear ghost like, being painted with grey light values. The subject gives the impression of being barely there, shifting between vision and emptiness, captured fleetingly. The underlying beauty of his paintings lies in his technical and imaginative proficiency. Nicolas is above all, an intelligent artist.

Título: Waterfalls
Oil on Linen
Size: 160 x 180 cms
Año: 2005

When asked about his portraiture work he replied “The concept of a likeness is also something I’m not really interested in. I would much rather paint a believable human being, that an empty likeness.”

FucsiaFunkPunk , 2009

“I guess it’s an attempt to portray a version of reality not by making a single representative icon, but to find essence in repetition. The echoing rhythms that are produced by motion, or replication, or even duplication are very sensual elements that broaden the vocabulary of painting if you will. The small difference between shapes that only seem similar, create a sort of respiratory system where the painting breathes. It’s really very attractive. There are also many direct references in terms of manner, to photography and digital post processing. That initiative, coupled with a technical decision to incorporate wax into my paintings, led me to what you describe as ghostly. I find them to be very sexy paintings, where the tonal range is reduced and requires the viewer to make an effort and really observe the subtlety present in each painting.”
In his more recent work from 2008, Nicolas juxtaposes elements of historical relevant artworks, painting over sections, altering their appearance.

Título: Venus
Mixed Media
Size: 100 x 140 cm
Año: 2008

"GO: What do you consider an artist's job, and/or responsibilities, to be, in a wider context? How do you see the role of the arts, particularly painting, in society, what can it uniquely offer?
NU: I actually feel very strongly about this, and I’ll be very blunt. I actually believe that even though the Artist may have the possibility to have strong social impact, or project a voice that can be heard, I believe Art is completely useless. It’s only purpose should be to create some sort of exchange between the work of Art and the viewer. It can communicate, reject, invite or simply avoid the viewer. And whether it provokes empathy, apathy, disregard, it does not have any impact on its nature nor quality. Art has never meant to be beautiful, or universal, or solve inequities of an unfair world. Art is made to be experienced, and whether its life is ephemeral or eternal is in the end unimportant."
The quotes come from an interview at http://paintingsf.blogspot.com/2008/03/interview-with-nicolas-uribe.html
Another of Nicolas’ talents is in appropriation and reexamination of classical artworks, painting over the top of reproductions.

In the image below, the face of Jesus Christ has been appropriated, and a torso has been inserted, genetalia explicit, with the words love machine painting below. The image immediately confronts the viewer with it’s sexual frankness and the disproportionate head.

Título: JesusChrist!
Mixed Media
Size: 90 x 70 cm
Año: 2008

Título:
Oil on Linen
Size: 245 x 280 cm
Año: 2002-2008

In this image above, Nicolas paints the sensuality of skin with a series of twisting nudes, the many faceless women identity less.

Título: Coffee Break
Oil on Cardboard
Size: 75 x 50 cms
Año: 2007

Nicolas Uribe is a unique artist in the contemporary art scene, with some elements of abstraction and modernism in his work, with his classical/illustration background he creates artworks that are both bold and bizarre, contemporary and traditional. Nicholas is also an artist who understands presentation of artworks on the internet, his website http://www.uribearts.com/ features high resolution and low resolution photographs of his artwork so the viewer can get an impression of his artwork up close and at a distance, something that is often poorly done on artist’s websites. Nicolas remains one of the great new figurative painters of the 21st century.

War Art

WAR ART
A war provides the artist with a number of interesting themes and events to record and document. A war artist records the war uniquely, some are soldiers with an interest in drawing, others are sanctioned by the government and some create propaganda.


War images have been present for centuries, Velázquez painted this treaty painting.

The Surrender of Breda 1635 Velázquez, 1634, 307cm x 367 cm

Rubens painted The Massacre Of the Innocents-1611

Otto Dix 'Sturmtruppe geht unter Gas vor [Stormtroops advancing under gas]' 1924 etching, aquatint, drypoint Collection of the National Gallery of Australia,

Verwundeter (Herbst 1916, Bapaume) [Wounded soldier - Autumn 1916, Bapaume], plate 6 from Der Krieg Intaglio etching, aquatint Edition: ed. 58/70

Some artists have taken an expressionistic approach to record the horrors of wars-
Der Krieg [War] 1924 arose out of Dix’s own experiences of the horrors of war. Otto Dix had volunteered for service in the army and fought as a machine-gunner on the Western Front. He was wounded a number of times, once almost fatally. War profoundly affected him as an individual and as an artist, and he took every opportunity, both during his active service and afterwards, to document his experiences.

In 1963, explaining why he volunteered for the army in the First World War he had this to say:
"I had to experience how someone beside me suddenly falls over and is dead and the bullet has hit him squarely. I had to experience that quite directly. I wanted it. I’m therefore not a pacifist at all – or am I? Perhaps I was an inquisitive person. I had to see all that myself. I’m such a realist, you know, that I have to see everything with my own eyes in order to confirm that it’s like that. I have to experience all the ghastly, bottomless depths of life for myself"…[3]
In the same interview, he also had this to say:
"As a young man you don’t notice at all that you were, after all, badly affected. For years afterwards, at least ten years, I kept getting these dreams, in which I had to crawl through ruined houses, along passages I could hardly get through."

http://nga.gov.au/dix/



Others paint as nationalistic propaganda


Battle scenes provide the artist with a number of poses for the figure, fallen corpses, attacking soldiers, arming guns and weapons, waiting in trenches, receiving medical aid, manning horses/vehicles.

Ivor Hele, Australian troops disembarking at Alexandria after the evacuation of Greece
painted in Aldinga, South Australia in 1943
oil on canvas
139.9 x 206 cm

The war artist faces tremendous risks in war zones to experience and record what he or she sees. War artists commissioned by the government and not enrolled in the military enter war zones unarmed and prone to danger. What sparks the civilian to enter war zones to be an artist? Otto Dix’s remarks reveal one attitude, the ability to be witness to such human actions, however other interests are present in war artists.

George Gittoes is a contemporary social realist who travels to war scenes through out the world, including Nicaragua, the Philippines, Somalia, Sinai, Southern Lebanon, Israel, Gaza, Western Sahara, Cambodia, Laos, Mozambique, South Africa, Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Bougainville, Tibet, Timor, the Congo and Rwanda.to bear witness to those who have experienced trauma through their environment.


His images, including dead bodies, diseased children, blindness and amputation are confronting and take a different perspective to the media. Constant bombardment of disturbing images in the media has caused many people to feel “desensitised” to violence. It is harder, however, to become comfortable or familiar with Gittoes’s images, as his art appeals to human emotion and ideas of justice, rather than political theories.

Gittoes pursues his career as war artist and the topics he looks into because he believes that by focusing and questioning man’s inhumanity will we be able to understand and change ourselves. “ I believe there is a role for contemporary art to challenge, rather than entertain. My work is confronting humanity with the darker side of itself.”

Kibeho (Rwanda)
oil on Canvas 240x258 cm 1995

Does war art have more or less impact than war photography? While the artist can exaggerate with style, embellish poses and scenes, the war photographer merely records with their camera. The effect of reality as expressed through painting and photography differ. War paintings are so entrenched with the human element/ emotions that they offer a subjective personal view, whereas the camera offers a more objective view, although the photographer is still present in its composition and creation. Personally war paintings seem more eternal and powerful. Photographs have to ability to confront us, to display viewers with real scenes of life captured, but not recorded with the sensibilities of the senses. War paintings present us with images conceived through human eyes, human ears, fingers and noses, photographs present us with mechanical snapshots of powerful moments in human history.

The third of May by Francisco de Goya 1814 :Oil on canvas Dimensions 268 cm × 347 cm Location Museo del Prado, Madrid

Austrians executing Serbs

The comparisons between these two images are striking; both depict soldiers executing unarmed foes. In Goya’s painting, the innocents are unarmed civilians, in the photograph Austrians are executing unarmed Serbian soldiers. The immense emotional impact is shared between the two visuals; both generate emotions of disgust, sympathy and terror.

These two images can exist in the wider framework on the power of art versus photography in terms of value, integrity and effectiveness. When analyzing these two images, some background information is to be known about how the images were created.

Goya was a Spaniard who was appalled by the treatment of occupying the French army at the start of the 19th century. The painting was commissioned by the provisional government of Spain at Goya's suggestion. Goya did not experience the scene shown in the painting, although he witnesses several similar events. Because of the commissioned nature of the work, it has a particular bias against the French which has some historical precedents. It is a large painting, measuring 268 cm × 347 cm and would have taken considerable time to plan and finish. It is likely he hired models to pose for the characters in the painting.

The photograph was taken instantly of a squad of Austrians seconds before firing at a number of kneeling, blind folded Serbians. The photograph is in high contrast, the blacks stand out against the whites. The image was taken by an Austrian photographer. This photograph captures a brief second, the moment before the execution as the soldiers steady their breath and aim.

Goya’s paintings serves an obvious purpose, to document the injustice of the occupying army, however the purpose of the photograph is a little ambiguous. On one level it serves as a historical document, but it isn’t clear why the photograph was taken and the intention of the photographer. Both images share similarities and differences and both have substantial emotional impact on the viewer.

John Singer Sargent, gassed
1918
Imperial War Museum
Oil on canvas
Full painting -- 231 x 611.1 cm

When analyzing War Art it is crucial in understanding the background behind the artist and their intent creating images. The effectiveness and integrity of the art depends on the truth and skill of the artist when creating these haunting works. War art serves many different purposes, as a visual reminder to the horrors and disasters of war, to document and preserve the lives of soldiers and to serve as nationalistic propaganda. War art is one of the most powerful documents of man’s inhumanity to man that we have available to us today. It preserves the visual history of man’s violent struggle through sanctioned murder and destruction and reminds us of our own mortality and safety.

Death in Art

Kevin Llewellyn Cadaver Study

Death is the end of life, the living’s last heart beat and breath and the completion of the life cycle. Death is represented in art as a cloaked skeletal figure, a skull and corpse among other guises. The cloaked skeleton is the personification of death, the grim reaper, who approaches as death becomes inevitable and ends life. The skull represents the peeling away of the face revealing the casing of the mind.

My interest in death lies in my interest in mortality, old age, the decayed body and the anatomical structure layered in a lifeless body. With death comes a peeling back of layers, skin, muscles, organs – embalming and mummification complete the process for the deceased. For organ donors the non living body becomes a sum of it’s parts, a commodity to help the living if possible.

In philosophy and religion, death presents us various views and beliefs. Two philosophical notions, dualism and physicalism, question whether there is an immaterial soul or whether the body is only a complicated organ capable of immense things. Most religious views have a belief in the afterlife and the continuation of living in some other form after life has been completed. For Christians death leads to heaven, or hell to nonbelievers. For Buddhists death restarts the life cycle in reincarnation, the person becoming another living entity in another shape.

The theme of death in art has been around for centuries. Death and the last living hours are present in the passion of the Christ, a subject matter that has been present strongly through art’s history. Christ on the cross has seen much iteration throughout the centuries, from El Greco’s Christ Carrying the Cross

To Velázquez’s Christ on the Cross- 1632

Death in art has the power to confront the viewer with their own mortality, their own livingness, in ways that surpass normal emotions. In most modern countries, death is something that is hidden away from people, separated into cemeteries and funerals. Most would agree that death is an inherently bad thing, that living surpasses death in possible everyway. In Mexican culture, death is celebrated in the Day of the Dead (El Día de los Muertos- Nov 2nd) the holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died. Death in culture has such wide ranging importance between nations and societies that simple analysis does little justice to the range of connotations.

In Ancient Greece death was personified as a bearded and winged manKevin Llewellyn

In Germanic folklore Death was a guise of Odin. The 'Grim' of Grim Reaper being derived from Grimnir, a name for Odin.

Wotan takes leave of brunhild by Konrad Dielitz

Old Slavic tribes viewed Death as a woman in white clothes, with a never-fading green sprout in her hand. The touch of the sprout would put a human to an everlasting sleep.

In the Bible, the fourth horseman of Revelation 6 is called Death, and is pictured with Hades following him.

Autopsy Alexander Carletti

Autopsy is a painting which I began featuring a medical examination of a corpse. An Autopsy is a medical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a human corpse to determine the cause and manner of a person's death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present. It is usually performed by a pathologist, from the Greek words "pathos" meaning "disease" and "logos" meaning "a treatise" = a treatise of disease.

Rembrandt’s
The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp. 1632

Death as a cutthroat by Alfred Rethel

Egon schiele
Death and the maiden 1915

Triumphing Death by Alfred Rethel

Dantes inferno
"This miserable way
is taken by the sorry souls of thoses
who lived without disgrace and without praise.
They now commingle with the coward angels,
the company of those who were not rebels
nor faithful to their God, but stood apart.
The heavens, that their beauty not be lessened,
have cast them out, not will deep Hell recieve them-
even the wicked cannot glory in them."
Inferno, Canto III, lines 34-42: Virgil on the Neutrals in the Ante-Hell.

Here one must leave behind all hesitation;
here every cowardice must meet its death.
Inferno: Canto III, lines 14-15

Death presents the artist with the theme of decay and mortality, a reminder to the living of their own livingness. The theme fits into the dark arts, the macabre and gruesome, the unhinged and strange. Death is an event, an experience, the terminal experience of one’s life, however death has a wider relation than that in art. Images of death personified, the dead, corpses and autopsies among other images, form the fabric for death’s tight grip.

Exhibition Opening: A New Experiene

So far in this blog I have never talked about my own artwork. The following post is a reflection on having my first solo exhibition in a gallery.




Having an exhibition was a completely new experience to me, it was both unnerving and exciting. Having an exhibition for the first time means exposing the private act of painting into a public context, and considering that few people see my artwork, usually only people I know on a personal level, it is intimidating to show strangers your craft and receive a response. I learnt a number of lessons dealing with interacting with people, presentation of artwork and finances.

Firstly, approaching someone at a gallery requires initiative; I had to phone the gallery to arrange an appointment and bring in my artwork. The first time I did this, I brought in about a dozen artworks and propped them against the wall of the gallery space. I talked to the gallery director and owner, Russell Starke at Greenhill Galleries and discussed my artwork with him. He said he liked the artwork and was interested in seeing more, although he was apprehensive about showing the work as an exhibition. He told me to phone back in a month, with the artworks signed by myself.
I phoned him back a month later, with more artworks complete and arranged to meet him a second time. I brought in a larger number of paintings this time, and a folder of drawings. He was impressed by the direction I was taking and arranged to have my work featured in the next exhibition in a fortnight’s time. He also asked me to prepare a disk featuring all the images, named, edges blackened, hooks to hang them attached and with their size proportions. The following week I fulfilled these tasks and brought in my artwork to be hung in the gallery space. I was presented with a list of the artworks as insurance. I briefly discussed pricing with the gallery assistant and the director, they suggested pricing between 250 and 450 dollars which was more than I expected.

The following Friday I went to the preview exhibition, which is an invitation only event where potential buyers have a chance to buy the artwork before the exhibition opening. At the preview event I was introduced to the other exhibiting artists and was introduced to a number of people attending. I viewed the artwork hanging in the gallery for the first time. The work was hung in the hallway; the images were close together, some above others. In the space of the hallway, there was little distance between the viewer and the artworks so standing at a distance was not possible for most of the works. The paintings were beneath a strong artificial light and images that had Liquin or varnish were very shiny. The lighting also showed various parts of paintings which were not entirely covered with Liquin, and shiny in places. Having the artworks closely spaced together meant you could not entirely focus on one painting; another painting would be in peripheral vision. At the preview exhibition I talked to a number of people, including a young couple who were doctors. At the start of the exhibition I was a little anxious about why I was there, and also conscious of making a good impression. I made an effort to dress more formally and also to be polite to people. I think that the preview went fine, although I was slightly disappointed that no artworks sold, I thought that considering their relatively low price and the stature of those attending that I might sell one artwork.

During the Preview exhibition I was approached by people who wanted to understand what was behind the exhibition. I explained that the images were based on a theme of the life cycle-life and death. The Dolls being representative of birth, although static lifeless objects, and the skulls were symbolic of old age and death. The feedback I received at the preview was mostly positive. People made comments such as “ this is good, strong work, very dynamic”. Under the intoxication of wine, one man commented that he liked the style of the paintings, but considered it too dark to hang in his home. This comment did not come as a surprise; it further reinforced my belief that the average art buyer is more interested in art as decoration than art as art, or is interested in lighter subject matter.

On Sunday I attended the exhibition opening, arriving at 11:30. Some of my friends arrived and viewed the exhibition. I started talking to Ms Bonython who asked me who interested me in contemporary art. I said I liked the artwork of Jenny Saville, Lucien Freud and Odd Nerdrum, choosing names I thought she would recognize. At 12:00 speeches began. Gallery Director Russell Starke addressed the crowd first and introduced the three artists exhibiting. At around 12:30 I left the exhibition with my friends, returning after 1:00. I talked to an artist who exhibits locally; she gave me some positive feedback about the artwork and asked about my plans after art school.
The overall exhibition was a success in the sense that I could present my artwork in a public setting and receive feedback. Through the process I learnt lessons about presentation of artwork and talking to strangers. Having an exhibition also taught me about people’s interest in purchasing artwork, and how difficult it is to sell an artwork in the current economic climate.

Photos taken at Opening Exhibition

Phil Hale

Illustration for Swamp Thing

Phil Hale is a contemporary illustrator and artist who lives in London.
Phil’s paintings express a dark anxiety, his figures unnerving and uncomfortable. The male form is almost always present in his paintings. The figure is in motion, performing some visual feat, often skin and muscle are taut and bold. A staple of Hale’s work is his male figures in the air, arms outstretched against a blue sky, attacking a mechanical beast.

clown

Phil’s work is often a violent depiction of male culture and masculinity. In his image punch, a dynamic boxer lands a punch against a gray boxer, wearing red gloves and shorts. The blow leaves the boxers face uncomfortably twitched, the face twisting with the blow.

Hale’s dynamic technique leads to the dark interpretation present. He paints shadows in dark, often black tones. His forte is cloth and musculature; he paints both superbly in immaculate detail. Each muscle, bone, vein painted to create a representation of physicality.

Punch

Having worked as an illustrator, painting comic and novel covers, phil turned to fine art, havng a show entitled Mockingbirds/Relaxender. His illustration work and fine art feature the same themes, the figure in motion.

Hair

In this image, Phil Hale paints musculature and motion against an almost blank backdrop. The character’s stick blurred in motion, the mechanical beast attacked.

Mask

It is the painting style and intensity of character that sets Phil hale apart from other figurative painters. His figures are not just examples of skin painting, but anatomical figures emotionally and physically strong. Phil Hale is a painter who projects emotions through characters who inhibit their own bizarre universe.

Justin Mortimer

Jockey Club

Justin Mortimer is a contemporary (born 1970) British artist who creates figurative works set in outdoor landscapes and paints commissioned portraits. Justin has created portraits for a number of important people, most notably his controversial painting of the Queen in 1997. His modernistic representation of the queen was met with public disapproval from Britain and other commonwealth countries, newspapers ran headlines such as “Off With her Head!”, interestingly Lucien Freud’s (previously discussed) portrait of the queen was dismissed by the public, who viewed it as an ugly portrait. Justin’s more recent work features bodies, often missing some anatomical part, or having multiple, appearing in coloured landscapes, often nondescript patches of colour, trees, uninhabited buildings, trees. Justin’s paint application is raw, often impasto and bold, sometimes thin and sometimes left with blank canvas.

La Cabanial

“Your current work now plays with fragmented bodies amalgamated with fragmented landscapes. There seems to be quite a lot of mimicking between the bodies and characteristics of the landscape. How do you choose the combination of your subject matter in terms of figure and place? Or perhaps, is it dependant on a narrative you are trying to create?”
JM- Well the figures are often either my girlfriend, myself or images I’ve gotten off of the internet, scanned from magazines or similar types of media, and also photographs taken of friends. What I tend to look for is just a particular shape in the body. Often it is a tilt or a lack of symmetry, a sort of imbalance, which is all part of this imbalance that I strive to get in my pictures; an emotional imbalance if you like. I’ll often choose a leg that has a tilt but also has a good structural relationship with the scene in which it’s been placed. The scene is very important in terms of how the person relates to it. It almost becomes like a painting of a sculpture. I often think about my paintings in three-dimensional terms. The leg is tilted and juxtaposed against perhaps a stick coming out of the ground, a tree stump, or even just a shape behind it. This is to create some kind of tension between the elements; it brings out the anxiety and the awkwardness that I’m trying to get out of the picture.


Justin is interested in the underlying structures of the figure, the anatomy below the skin, taking inspiration from medical photography. This interest stemmed from childhood experience of surgical procedures on his leg and being photographed by doctors. Justin writes “Having made a living as a portrait painter for twenty odd years, I just found it more interesting now to paint how a face could suddenly be taken away in a car accident or could be broken somehow”. This results in a representation of the figure that is far away from traditional representation of the figure, while maintaining some realism of the body. Much like Lucien Freud, Justin Mortimer isn’t interested in portraying beauty. Beauty is treated as a by product of the painting technique, the figures created in the painting aren’t necessarily luscious skin paintings( like Rubens) but fragmented figures, seeming out of place in their habitat. The beauty in Justin’s work results from his unique painting approach and technique, the beauty is the unnerving monolith painted spaces that are both powerful and subtle.

A collage

This moment of rupture can take any form. Sometimes the form is a scraped away hand, an area of blank canvas, a massive monolithic application of paint, or a cut away figure. The result is always one of discord, when the narrative or legibility of the painting is silenced and another much more disturbing air enters the fray. The use of guerrilla tactics undoubtedly results in a kind of violence, but that is not to say that the paintings do not still posses delicacy or even melancholic contemplation. 2007 Pippy Houldsworth Gallery Press Release

family plot 2007

Queen 1997

Justin Mortimer creates a painting by beginning with a collage. Photographs of figures, taken of his girlfriend, friends,from magazines or the internet and placed on images of landscapes. Justin describes the landscape as” psychological spaces as much as real places; the paranoid landscape”. The collage is scaled up and painted on the canvas, then through continual altering and redrafting, the image emerges charged with emotive tension and anxiety.



“The picture isn’t realized, it’s a combination of a lot of confusing elements being imposed and it often makes the pictures quite hard to read.” This is perhaps the reason why Justin’s work stands out, and appears both seductive and nauseating.

Justin’s figures represent dissociation between the head and body, between the people in the paintings, and the people and the landscape. He creates work that is modern, using modern techniques such as Photoshop composing; he incorporates abstraction and realism in his tension charred works. Justin is a unique artist with a bold and distinctive vision that seems to fit into our time in a way that few artists achieve.



Quotes taken from an interview with Justin Mortimer
by David Yu
http://www.artslant.com/lon/articles/show/7961