anthony scullion
5th August - 27th September

Anthony Scullion graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1992. He then spent many years in South Africa where he had several solo and group shows, returning to the UK in 1998. Although his paintings are ostensibly figure pieces, he is attempting to capture much more than that, the emotion and workings of the soul.

Scullion has studied the chiaroscuro of Rembrandt, the spirituality of Giacometti and the distortions of Francis Bacon, to create his own thoughtful approach to the human body. His figures are most often a single head or figure, seemingly unfinished, against a hazy background, which has been described as a ‘soulscape’. The sketchiness of the figure actually conceals layers of paint, indicating that the motif has been revisited many times, enriching the canvas surface. In this manner, he explores the beauties of human flesh and the human soul.

Megakles Rogakos, art historian and critic, has noted the Existential air of Scullion’s work, and how he transposes onto his portraiture as much his own self as the portrait of the beholder – whoever that might be … the character of Scullion’s model is thereby lost in the process of its working. What remains in the end is the fundamental essence of existence itself, and this ‘stuff' – placed thus before us – is inescapably a portrait of us all.