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| Robert Priseman |
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by David Buckman, author, The Dictionary of Artists in Britain since 1945.
(15 Mar 2006) |
Although some artists are content to build a career and create a reputation based on a restricted palette and limited range of subjects, others are restless to tackle something new. The conservative might find it disquieting that, say, the Laurence Olivier who portrayed Henry V later played Archie Rice, that the Rudyard Kipling of Puck of Pook's Hill also penned Recessional, that Richard Rodney Benett who creates symphonies and concertos composes film music and is an accomplished jazz performer or that the David Hockney of the exquisitely detailed ink drawings and etchings suddenly presents us with stage designs on a grand scale. To me, such versatility has always been a delight.
Robert Priseman has been a full-time painter only since the early 1990s, yet since then in mixed exhibitions and soloshows his pictures have revealed several new twists. He has portrayed subjects as varied as the comedian Norman Wisdom, the journalist William Deedes and the Dalai Lama. As a contrast, his Curwen Gallery exhibition in 2000 was notable for landscapes of a peculiar poetic stillness. Now he is pursuing a new path with a series of meticulously detailed, atmospheric interiors of operating theatres, mortuaries and escalators - peopleless pictures of a disquieting, surreal intensity. They are mysterious images to which each individual will contribute his own emotional response, and I feel they presage even more surprises in future from this interesting artist.
David Buckman, author, The Dictionary of Artists in Britain since 1945. |
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There are 7 articles on Robert Priseman:
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