Figuring it out

Being a figurative painter today is probably no more challenging or rewarding than it has ever been. When immersed in the business of putting paint on a surface you are faced with the same problems: colour scheme, composition, gesture and the task of communicating the idea. Although it can help in finding the right audience for my work, I am slightly uncomfortable with being typecast as a figurative painter — i.e., someone who makes paintings with obvious references to the real world — principally because of the connotations: the idea that figuration means accurate photographic representation. I don’t hold with that reverence for accuracy; there has to be room for the artist’s interpretation.

The question of figurative painting’s relevance is pressing in the current art climate where video, performance and photography are so fashionable. We are more readily stimulated and seduced by figurative painting: it is more accessible and can make a direct comment about its subject.