Jock McFadyen
Encyclopedia
Biography
McFadyen was born 18 September 1950 in PaisleyPaisley
Paisley is the largest town in the historic county of Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland and serves as the administrative centre for the Renfrewshire council area...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. As a teenager he attended Saturday morning classes at Glasgow School of Art
Glasgow School of Art
Glasgow School of Art is one of only two independent art schools in Scotland, situated in the Garnethill area of Glasgow.-History:It was founded in 1845 as the Glasgow Government School of Design. In 1853, it changed its name to The Glasgow School of Art. Initially it was located at 12 Ingram...
. McFadyen moved to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1966 at the age of fifteen and was educated at Chelsea School of Art, gaining his BA in 1976 and MA in 1977. He taught one day a week at the Slade School of Art between 1980 and 2005. He married Carol Hambleton in 1972 (son Jamie b.1972) and his second wife Susie Honeyman (violin player in the Mekons) in 1991 (daughter Annie b.1993, son George b.1995).
McFadyen is an artist who is sometimes associated with figurative painting of the 1980s. This has often irked McFadyen who, by the advent of that decade, had jettisoned the schematic narrative painting with which he made his name in the late 1970s.
In 1981 Jock McFadyen was appointed Artist in Residence at the National Gallery, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. During this period the painter resolved to make the observed world his subject rather than the witty conjectures with which he had graduated from Chelsea School of Art in 1977. The first pictures to emerge in the early eighties were populated by the waifs and strays of pre Canary Wharf London. McFadyen, like many others, was part of that diaspora of artists which had taken to the East End since the late sixties and he has always claimed that the figures in his work of that period were not inventions but sightings of individuals and events of the time.
In 1991 McFadyen was commissioned by the Artistic Records Committee of The Imperial War Museum to record events surrounding the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. In 1992 he was commissioned to design the set and costumes for Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s last ballet The Judas Tree
The Judas Tree
The Judas Tree is a 1961 novel by A. J. Cronin. It begins with the story of David Moray, his early career as an ambitious young doctor away on business. He has promised to return to marry a woman he loves, Mary Douglas. Early on in the story he is introduced to successful people and is invited to...
at the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
, Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
. It was at this point that the figure fell away from McFadyen's work. Full-blown urban landscape, sometimes on a monumental scale, emerged and continues to preoccupy the artist to this day.
Jock McFadyen claims Sickert
Walter Sickert
Walter Richard Sickert , born in Munich, Germany, was a painter who was a member of the Camden Town Group in London. He was an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the 20th century....
as well as Whistler and L. S. Lowry
L. S. Lowry
Laurence Stephen Lowry was an English artist born in Barrett Street, Stretford, Lancashire. Many of his drawings and paintings depict nearby Salford and surrounding areas, including Pendlebury, where he lived and worked for over 40 years at 117 Station Road , opposite St...
among painterly influences from the past, while German and American realist film from the 1970s as well as the contemporary novel and music are influences which are more significant to the artist than those from contemporary painting. During the 1990s McFadyen found a fellow traveller in the writer Iain Sinclair
Iain Sinclair
Iain Sinclair FRSL is a British writer and filmmaker. Much of his work is rooted in London, most recently within the influences of psychogeography.-Life and work:...
whose Downriver
Downriver
Downriver is the unofficial name for a collection of 18 suburban cities and townships in Wayne County, Michigan south of Detroit along the western shore of the Detroit River....
and Lights out for the territory mirrored the artist’s preoccupation with the eastern plains of the city and its estuary. McFadyen had previously worked with the novelists Howard Jacobson
Howard Jacobson
Howard Jacobson is a Man Booker Prize-winning British Jewish author and journalist. He is best known for writing comic novels that often revolve around the dilemmas of British Jewish characters.-Background:...
and Will Self
Will Self
William Woodard "Will" Self is an English novelist and short story writer. His fictional style is known for being satirical, grotesque, and fantastical. He is a prolific commentator on contemporary British life, with regular appearances on Newsnight and Question Time...
on prints and booklets. In 2001 Iain Sinclair
Iain Sinclair
Iain Sinclair FRSL is a British writer and filmmaker. Much of his work is rooted in London, most recently within the influences of psychogeography.-Life and work:...
wrote Walking up walls to accompany Jock McFadyen’s solo exhibition at Agnews and Lund Humphries published a monograph on the artist, A book about a painter, written by David Cohen. In 2004 McFadyen collaborated with Sinclair and others to create an exhibition about the A13 at the Wapping Project curated by the Architecture Foundation.
In 2005 McFadyen and his wife Susie Honeyman collaborated to create The Grey Gallery, a nomadic entity set up to work with artists, writers and musicians on a project by project basis with the aim of working across disciplines and to work outside of the existing dealer/ curator conventions. Projects have included the sculptor Richard Wilson
Richard Wilson (sculptor)
Richard Wilson is a sculptor, installation artist and musician.Born in Islington, in London, he studied at the London College of Printing, Hornsey College of Art and Reading University...
, painter Bob and Roberta Smith
Roberta Smith
Roberta Smith is an art critic for the New York Times and a lecturer on contemporary art.Born in New York City and raised in Lawrence, Kansas, Smith studied at Grinnell College in Iowa. Her career in the arts started in 1968 while an undergraduate summer intern at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in...
, and musicians Little Sparta
Little Sparta
Little Sparta is a garden at Dunsyre in the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh, created by artist and poet Ian Hamilton Finlay and his wife Sue Finlay....
and Giles Perring.
McFadyen currently lives and works in London, Edinburgh and France. He has had over 40 solo exhibitions and his work is held by 30 public collections as well as private and corporate collections in Britain and abroad.
Exhibitions
Selected Solo Exhibitions2009
The Grey Gallery, London
2007
The Grey Gallery, London
Wolverhampton Art Gallery
The Grey Gallery, Edinburgh Festival
Edinburgh Festival
The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...
2005
Roadworks, Rude Wercs, London
Roadworks, Scottish Gallery Projects, Edinburgh Festival
2001
Agnew's, London,
1999
Pier Arts Centre, St Magnus Festival
St Magnus Festival
The St Magnus Festival is an annual 6-day arts festival which takes place on the islands of Orkney off the north coast of mainland Scotland.-History and Management:...
, Orkney
1998
Tegnerforbundet Galleri, Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
Talbot Rice Gallery
Talbot Rice Gallery
The Talbot Rice Gallery is part of the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland and was established in 1975. It takes its name from David Talbot Rice, the Watson Gordon Professor of Fine Art at the University of Edinburgh from 1934–1972....
, Edinburgh Festival
Edinburgh Festival
The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...
Urbasuburba with Humphrey Ocean
Humphrey Ocean
-Biography:Humphrey Ocean was born Humphrey Anthony Erdeswick Butler-Bowdon, on 22 June 1951 in Sussex, England, and went to art schools in Tunbridge Wells, Brighton and Canterbury...
Kapil Jariwala Gallery, London
1997
Ormeau Baths Gallery
Ormeau Baths Gallery
The Ormeau Baths Gallery in Belfast, Northern Ireland, is one of Ireland's premier contemporary art spaces. It curated exhibitions by prominent international artists including; Yoko Ono, Gilbert & George, Victor Sloan, Bill Viola, Hans Peter Kuhn, Stan Douglas, David Byrne, Willie Doherty and...
, Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
Whitworth Gallery, Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
1996
Galleri 27, Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
1995
The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
Edinburgh Printmakers' Workshop
1994
Galleri 27, Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
1992
Manchester City Art Gallery
Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
1991
The Imperial War Museum, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
William Jackson Gallery, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
Austin Desmond Fine Art, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
1989
The Scottish Gallery, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
1988
Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston
Camden Arts Centre
Camden Arts Centre
Camden Arts Centre is a contemporary visual art gallery, dedicated to engaging living artists from across the world. Positioning the artist at the centre of the programme, Camden Arts Centre strives to involve the public in the ideas and work of today's artists.The exhibition and education...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
1986
Touring exhibition, Ceolfrith Gallery, Sunderland; Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery; Stoke-on-Trent Museum and Art Gallery; Bolton Museum and Art Gallery; Arts Council Gallery, Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
Blond Fine Art, London
1983
Blond Fine Art, London
1982
Blond Fine Art, London
The National Gallery, London
Compass Gallery, Glasgow
1981
St Paul's Gallery, Leeds
Blond Fine Art, London
1980
Bede Gallery, Jarrow
1979
Acme Gallery
1978
New 57 Gallery, Edinburgh
Acme Gallery, London
Group exhibitions
Many mixed exhibitions in Europe and the USA since 1978 including The John Moores, Liverpool; Hayward Annual; The British Art Show; The New British Painting, USA; British Council Touring Shows; British Figuration, Florence; A13, Wapping Project, LondonCorporate Collections
Many private and corporate collections, including Clifford ChanceClifford Chance
Clifford Chance LLP is a global law firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom and a member of the 'Magic Circle' of leading UK law firms. It is one of the ten largest law firms in the world measured by both number of lawyers and revenue...
, Deutsche Bank
Deutsche Bank
Deutsche Bank AG is a global financial service company with its headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany. It employs more than 100,000 people in over 70 countries, and has a large presence in Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific and the emerging markets...
, Fleming Collection, Bank of Scotland
Bank of Scotland
The Bank of Scotland plc is a commercial and clearing bank based in Edinburgh, Scotland. With a history dating to the 17th century, it is the second oldest surviving bank in what is now the United Kingdom, and is the only commercial institution created by the Parliament of Scotland to...
and Prudential
Prudential plc
Prudential plc is a multinational financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom.Prudential's largest division is Prudential Corporation Asia, which has over 15 million customers across 13 Asian markets and is a top-three provider of life insurance in mainland China, Hong...
Public collections
Amnesty InternationalAmnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
Arts Council of Great Britain
Arts Council of Great Britain
The Arts Council of Great Britain was a non-departmental public body dedicated to the promotion of the fine arts in Great Britain. The Arts Council of Great Britain was divided in 1994 to form the Arts Council of England , the Scottish Arts Council, and the Arts Council of Wales...
Ashmolean Museum
Ashmolean Museum
The Ashmolean Museum on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is the world's first university museum...
, Oxford
BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
Bede Gallery, Jarrow
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
British Council
British Council
The British Council is a United Kingdom-based organisation specialising in international educational and cultural opportunities. It is registered as a charity both in England and Wales, and in Scotland...
British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
City of Edinburgh
Cleveland Gallery, Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough is a large town situated on the south bank of the River Tees in north east England, that sits within the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire...
Contemporary Art Society
Glasgow Art Gallery
Government Art Collection
Government Art Collection
The United Kingdom's Government Art Collection places works of art in major Government buildings in the UK and around the world to promote British art, culture and history....
The Guildhall, London
Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow
The Imperial War Museum
Kunsthalle, Hamburg
Leicester Education Authority
Lillie Art Gallery, Glasgow
Manchester City Art Gallery
The Museum of London
The National Gallery, London
St Anne's College
St Anne's College
St Anne's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Formerly a women's college, it has been coeducational since 1979 and now prides itself on being "a modern, forward-looking, intellectually ambitious college"...
, Oxford
Scottish Arts Council
Scottish Arts Council
The Scottish Arts Council is a Scottish public body that distributes funding from the Scottish Government, and is the leading national organisation for the funding, development and promotion of the arts in Scotland...
Sheffield City Art Gallery
Tate Gallery
Tate Gallery
The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
, London
The Theatre Museum
The Theatre Museum
The Theatre Museum is located in the heart of New York City’s Times Square at 723 Seventh Avenue. Its mission is to preserve, protect and perpetuate the legacy of theatre, including Broadway theatre...
, London
University of Dundee
University of Dundee
The University of Dundee is a university based in the city and Royal burgh of Dundee on eastern coast of the central Lowlands of Scotland and with a small number of institutions elsewhere....
The Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Walsall Museum and Art Gallery
Whitworth Gallery, Manchester
Wolverhampton City Art Gallery
Worcester Art Gallery
Selected bibliography
2001Beyond Turners Road publication to accompany solo exhibition at Agnew’s, London, with story Walking up Walls commissioned from Iain Sinclair
Iain Sinclair
Iain Sinclair FRSL is a British writer and filmmaker. Much of his work is rooted in London, most recently within the influences of psychogeography.-Life and work:...
Jock McFadyen, A Book About a Painter, monograph by David Cohen
David Cohen
David Cohen , was an American lawyer, Democratic civil servant and politician. For the last 26 years of his life, he was a Philadelphia city councilman representing the northwest district. Having served a four year term not consecutive to the other terms, he represented northwest Philadelphia for a...
with contributions from other authors, published by Lund Humphries
1999
From Orkney and Other Places, publication to accompany solo exhibition for St Magnus Festival
St Magnus Festival
The St Magnus Festival is an annual 6-day arts festival which takes place on the islands of Orkney off the north coast of mainland Scotland.-History and Management:...
at Pier Arts Centre, Stromness
Stromness
Stromness is the second-biggest town in Orkney, Scotland. It is in the south-west of Mainland Orkney. It is also a parish, with the town of Stromness as its capital.-Etymology:...
, Orkney, prose commissioned from Will Self
Will Self
William Woodard "Will" Self is an English novelist and short story writer. His fictional style is known for being satirical, grotesque, and fantastical. He is a prolific commentator on contemporary British life, with regular appearances on Newsnight and Question Time...
1998
Looking Out To Sea, catalogue for solo Edinburgh Festival
Edinburgh Festival
The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...
exhibition at Talbot Rice Gallery
Talbot Rice Gallery
The Talbot Rice Gallery is part of the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland and was established in 1975. It takes its name from David Talbot Rice, the Watson Gordon Professor of Fine Art at the University of Edinburgh from 1934–1972....
Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, with an essay by Duncan Macmillan
Duncan Macmillan
Duncan Macmillan was a British track and field athlete who competed in the 1912 Summer Olympics.He was born in Nottingham and died in Perth, Australia....
1997
Urbasuburba, catalogue for joint exhibition with Humphrey Ocean
Humphrey Ocean
-Biography:Humphrey Ocean was born Humphrey Anthony Erdeswick Butler-Bowdon, on 22 June 1951 in Sussex, England, and went to art schools in Tunbridge Wells, Brighton and Canterbury...
, Whitworth Gallery and tour, with foreword by Alistair Smith
Alistair Smith
Alistair Smith is an Australian rules footballer for the St Kilda Football Club in the Australian Football League .- AFL career :...
and story commissioned from Will Self
Will Self
William Woodard "Will" Self is an English novelist and short story writer. His fictional style is known for being satirical, grotesque, and fantastical. He is a prolific commentator on contemporary British life, with regular appearances on Newsnight and Question Time...
1991
Fragments from Berlin, catalogue for solo exhibition at Imperial War Museum London, Kelvingrove Glasgow and Manchester City Art Gallery, with foreword by Angela Weight and essay by Tom Lubbock
Canal
Canal
Canals are man-made channels for water. There are two types of canal:#Waterways: navigable transportation canals used for carrying ships and boats shipping goods and conveying people, further subdivided into two kinds:...
, catalogue for solo exhibition at William Jackson Gallery, London, with an introduction by Jeffery Camp and an essay by Howard Jacobson
Howard Jacobson
Howard Jacobson is a Man Booker Prize-winning British Jewish author and journalist. He is best known for writing comic novels that often revolve around the dilemmas of British Jewish characters.-Background:...
1990
John Bellany
John Bellany
John Bellany, CBE, RA is a Scottish painter.He was born in Port Seton. During the 1960s, he studied at Edinburgh College of Art and then at the Royal College of Art in London....
, Peter Howson
Peter Howson
Peter Howson OBE is a Scottish painter. He was an official war artist in the 1993 Bosnian Civil War.Peter Howson was born in London and moved with his family to Prestwick, Ayrshire, when Howson was aged four...
and Jock McFadyen, catalogue for three man show at Pamela Auchincloss Gallery, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, with an essay by Mary Rose Beaumont
1989
Jock McFadyen, catalogue for solo exhibition at Forum, Hamburg, with an essay by Mary Rose Beaumont
1986
Jock McFadyen Paintings, catalogue for solo touring exhibition organised by the Northern Centre for contemporary Art, with an essay by Lewis Biggs, ‘Realism in Art, or a slap in the face with a wet Kipper’
1978
Jock McFadyen, paintings drawings titles, catalogue for solo exhibition at New 57 Gallery, Edinburgh, with introductions by artists Jim Latter and Simon Read
Quotes
Howard JacobsonHoward JacobsonHoward Jacobson is a Man Booker Prize-winning British Jewish author and journalist. He is best known for writing comic novels that often revolve around the dilemmas of British Jewish characters.-Background:...
: I think when pondering the extraordinary resilience of life as Jock McFadyen paints and sculpts it to recall that there is such a thing as a Northern imagination, an Arctic as opposed to a Mediterranean cast of mind and that it finds more to admire in harshness than in ease, more that is native to it in obduracy than luxury.
Iain SinclairIain SinclairIain Sinclair FRSL is a British writer and filmmaker. Much of his work is rooted in London, most recently within the influences of psychogeography.-Life and work:...
: That’s why these paintings are shaped like cheques. Like the windscreens of American cars. Like the space between quotation marks. They’re not much, when you set them against the transient weirdness of this road, this territory. But they’re all we’ve got. And we’re lucky to have them.
David Cohen : His explorations add up to a powerful and credible argument about painting. If he were a scholar, we would say that he has tested his thesis against different methodologies to arrive at a sustainable conclusion. But it is important for our appreciation of McFadyen to remember that he is not a scholar: in an era which has seen too much epistemological posturing in the art-world, his art is always poetic.
Tom Lubbock : He works like a sightseer without a guide book
Professor Duncan Macmillan : He paints the buildings he finds, not, it seems just out of architectural curiosity, but in a way that shows us how they are indicators of the values by which we live and the blind forces we seek to control, but that insistently make themselves felt. Ruskin might not have liked the buildings, or the gritty realism, but he would have to approve the thought, and perhaps too the care and manifest workmanship with which McFadyen goes about painting his chosen subjects, though the results are not always very flattering to us and the world we have created for ourselves; for the places he paints are the visible fault lines in that creation, the cracks in the mirror of our complacency.
Hugo WilliamsHugo WilliamsHugo Williams is a British poet, journalist and travel writer. His full name is Hugh Mordaunt Vyner Williams He is the son of actor Hugh Williams and the model and actress Margaret Vyner, who co-wrote some upper-middle-class comedies in the late 1950s...
: Jock is so easy going about the fate of his paintings that he is prepared to let one of them set out on a highly unpredictable journey, the first lap of which will be on the back of my motorbike.
Humphrey OceanHumphrey Ocean-Biography:Humphrey Ocean was born Humphrey Anthony Erdeswick Butler-Bowdon, on 22 June 1951 in Sussex, England, and went to art schools in Tunbridge Wells, Brighton and Canterbury...
: Jock McFadyen surprisingly is a Scotsman but he has lived most of his life in London and a good proportion of that in eastern postcodes. His viewpoint is different (I maintain) from a Londoners. There is no ‘work is the curse of the drinking classes’ morality here, no mawkish sentimentality. When McFadyen includes graffiti, it is not an accessory, the whole painting is as urgent and deft as if he himself were in imminent danger of arrest for criminal damage.