Edward Sutcliffe
ABOUT
I make paintings that reflect my world; forensic, chaotic and beautiful.
I used to make photorealist paintings with a juicy conceptual core - mischievous, irreverent and spirited. However, some time ago these paintings became harder to work on. Making them felt like a long and slow way to tell a thin joke. The world didn't feel particularly jovial and I felt stale.
I wanted to make paintings that were more honest. A more simple art that wasn’t trying to be clever. In some of my new work you will see I have kicked the habit of working from photographs, helping to refocus my paintings around direct observation. Looking at real things and painting them now felt essential to my work.
I started to look at things around me in studio. What I saw was beguiling in its beauty and unsettling in its complexity. I tried to make paintings based on these observations and my new work moulds this intense scrutiny into beautiful yet neurotic paintings that hold a mirror to my world.
I Live in London and work out of my studio in Ladbroke Grove in West London.
EXHIBITIONS
WAYSIDE, 2022, Illuminate Productions, Davies Street, Mayfair, London
THE JOHN MOORES PAINTING PRIZE, 2021, The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
VANITAS, 2019, Brixton Beneficiary, London
Group show examining Baroque traditions in contemporary painting. With Hynek Martinec, Ben Ashton and Eleonore Pironneau.
RUTH BORCHARD SELF PORTRAIT PRIZE, 2019, Kings Place, London
LYNN PAINTER STAINERS ANNUAL SHOW, 2019, Mall Galleries, London
SEMBLANCE, 2017, Dorchester Art Gallery, Dorchester
BP TRAVEL AWARD, 2015, National Portrait Gallery, London (solo).
Prize Awarded in 2014 for my proposal to create a series of portraits of the members of Compton Cricket Club. The club was formed to help encourage and empower the disaffected youth of an area synonymous with poverty and crime.
Press for the travel award:
LA Times: https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-adv-compton-cricket-20150705-story.html
IN THE BATHROOM MIRROR 2014, Dubai Arts Centre, UAE (solo).
BP PORTRAIT AWARD 2014, National Portrait Gallery, London
BP PORTRAIT AWARD 2012, National Portrait Gallery, London
BP PORTRAIT AWARD 2011, National Portrait Gallery, London
BP PORTRAIT AWARD 2010, National Portrait Gallery, London
BP PORTRAIT AWARD 2009, National Portrait Gallery, London
IDENTITY, 2009, The Empire Gallery, Vyner Street, London
BP PORTRAIT AWARD 2007, National Portrait Gallery, London
THE WALSALL OPEN, The New Art Gallery, Walsall
BP PORTRAIT AWARD 2001, National Portrait Gallery, London
EDUCATION
2005 – 2006 Post-Graduate Diploma, Fine Art Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design - University of the Arts London, London
2000 –2001 PGCE, Art and Design, Birmingham Institute of Art and Design - University of Central England, Birmingham
1996 – 1999 Art with Art History BA Hons, University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Photo Credit: Anna Dea
