FACING Edward Povey

FACING

FACING

Edward Povey narrowing the focus

FACING

Edward Povey narrowing the focus

You would think that the making of art would have everything to do with expansion, but in fact all the arts are made in a perpetual state of narrowing. An artist makes a painting and narrows it from infinite possibilities to a landscape. He narrows the landscape to a rural scene, narrows from all possible plants to a tree, and from all possible trees to an apple tree, and so forth. Endless narrowing. Endless choosing.

My focus on conveying the human experience is probably a lifelong one, but within its gamut I am progressively narrowing my focus.

During this period since 2017 I chose what

what I regard as the ‘truthful perspective’ of children’s art, preRenaissance religious art and early Cubism. Flattened tables and upright floor patterns Mixed prospectives on tables strewn with cutlery

I used the limited tonal range of Giotto’s Verdaccio palette. All of this allowed me to parade one particular technique on the flesh of my figures: layered glazes that produce the translucent mortality of the human body.

By late 2023 I was searching for something less “chocolate box” and more strident. More conceptual. In my frustration I looked back to my allegorical

allegorical paintings of 2019 to 2020. I also devised a more consolidated and abstractly strong concept in my painting Béguinage.

I considered the notion of reducing the paintings to faces alone, and in my notes observed that ‘faces in profile are informational, faces from a threequarter perspective appear to be rather old-fashioned and narrative, and full frontal faces are more abrupt and conceptual.’ They cease to be individuals and become ‘humanity’.

Quite quickly I imagined twenty different ways that the full frontal face could be handled using metaphor in a lnicely

nicely liminal way. In other words, not being obvious, not trying to be clever, but leaving the faces inscrutable and with more possibilities than a simple symbolism.

The only way to engage in this was to fly from England to the United States and photograph the best model I have found thus far, in the writer Andrea Harper.

She possesses unselfconsciousness and a complexity of emotion as well as a withdrawn quality of privacy that would be ideal for my faces.………………….

This would have to be handled in high quality

quality photographs, in a multitude of circumstances that are demanding to photograph, and not easy for Andrea Harper either.………………………….…

These photographs are just the very first stage of my process. Since taking them, I have progressively gone back, learning them and noticing the quiet almost indiscernible emotional reactions that are my main tool and my best intuition in narrowing down to the images from which I could make large paintings.

Andrea is the ideal model for me, the poses are critical and difficult, and the choices are emotionally complicated to make, but when all is said and done, the

the photographs are only the beginning.

I turned them into black and white to remove the distraction of natural colour and provide me with simple tonal values I will then positively ‘use’ what the photographs provide me with in order to transform them, adding veins and the distribution of blood in the skin, and slimming down my tonal range to create ‘air’, smells and oxygen Only then can I hope to arrive at my personal taste of human experience

All this, in my process of narrowing.

Edward

Povey, June 2024

‘These photographs are just the very first stage of my process.’

55

BLINDFOLD - working photograph for a canvas

X 47 inches / 140 X 120 cm

CONSUMPTION DRY - working photograph for a canvas 79 X 79 inches / 170 X 170 cm

CONSUMPTION WET - working photograph for a canvas 79 X 56 inches / 170 X 140 cm

DIVIDED WOMAN 1 - working photograph for a canvas 55 X 47 inches / 140 X 120 cm

DIVIDED WOMAN 2 - working photograph for a canvas 79 X 56 inches / 170 X 140 cm

FAMILY - working photograph for a canvas 55 X 47 inches / 140 X 120 cm

FITTING - working photograph for a canvas 55 X 47 inches / 140 X 120 cm

- working photograph for a canvas 55 X 47 inches / 140 X 120 cm

GAGGED

HOUSE - working photograph for a canvas 55 X 47 inches / 140 X 120 cm

OVER-WRITING - working photograph for a canvas 55 X 47 inches / 140 X 120 cm

SCREAM - working photograph for a canvas 79 X 56 inches / 170 X 140 cm

PAPER

SPOONS - working photograph for a canvas 79 X 56 inches / 170 X 140 cm

- working photograph for a canvas 79 X 56 inches / 170 X 140 cm

WRITING

One of the paintings in this collection will be exhibited in the Museu Europeu d’Art Modern, Barcelona from September 2024 to May 2025 as part of the REALISM NOW exhibition

Edward Povey is represented in the USA by Ray Waterhouse and Sandra Safta Waterhouse of MODERN FINE ART | Fine Art Brokers, New York (formerly Waterhouse & Dodd, New York) +1 212 717 9100 | +1 917 821 4141 sandra.waterhouse@modernfineart.com sandra.waterhouse@fineartbrokers.com www.fineartbrokers.com www.modernfineart.com

EDWARD POVEY STUDIO

Devon ENGLAND www.edwardpovey.com studio@edward-povey.com

All images and writing in this brochure are subject to copyright. ©2024.Edward Povey. All rights reserved.