Misc Artists
BIOGRAPHIES
FRANK MCFADDEN
From the Glasgow area of Maryhill, Frank McFadden is a protégée of Peter Howson. A former sign-writer and graphic designer, just a few years ago he was addicted to drugs and selling The Big Issue. The older painter, who has also had his problems with addiction, met McFadden by chance in a café on Great Western Road. Howson took him under his wing, employing him as a studio assistant and helping McFadden develop his own artistic ability and personal strength. McFadden says that ‘Peter helped me to believe that I had a future', and his wish to be a better father to his young daughter spurred him on to create a new life for himself. Howson and McFadden now share a studio in Glasgow's city centre, and exhibit together in Glasgow and New York. As McFadden's fame grows, he is building a list of celebrity patrons, including Jessica Simpson and Dawn French.
Like many other painters, McFadden uses the canvas to work out his own personal demons. The figures in his paintings and pastels are, like Howson's, the dispossessed of society. The pain of people's lives is put on display through contorted poses, hard lines and luminous colours. Howson says, ‘I found Frank's work unbelievable. I think he could be one of the great British artists but it will take another five to ten years.'
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ANTHONY SCULLION
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.
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CHERYLENE DYER
Cherylene Dyer was born in Dumfries and studied at Glasgow School of Art. She graduated in 1998 with an honours degree in drawing and painting. Since graduation she has continued living in Glasgow and painting full time.
Specialising in figurative works, her main inspirations coming from the old masters. Listing Rembrant and Carevaggio as key influences in her work, she aims to create atmosphere and ambiguity in her paintings.
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STEVE JOHNSTON
Born in Glasgow in 1956 Steve grew up in Dumfries and studied at art school. Upon leaving, he became an apprentice electrician for a brief period, as he was uncertain of where his artistic path led. In 1973, Carlisle College offered him a placement, where, during the second year, he opted for a change in medium, preferring photography to painting. He found black & white formats extremely inspiring and exciting to work with, seeing himself in fact as an artist but utilising a camera rather than paint.
Upon leaving college he moved to London where he did freelance work for teen magazines, which led to work for Vogue in 1977, where his work was included in the ‘Pink Punk Book' published in 1978. This style of photo launched the first issue of i-D magazine in 1980, where he worked for the following few years. In 1991, when photography no longer became inspirational for him, he started painting seriously again concentrating once again on the medium that he had originally embraced. "It was then that something clicked and I have not looked back since......painting is my life."
He is always drawn to figures that create a great shape. Details such as ‘how' someone is standing or ‘what' they are doing come into play afterwards. It is the graphic shape of the ‘body mass' that inspires the first ideas. Certain images can unlock powerful emotions which are separate from what the actual content of the picture could create if focused on in more detail.
He attempts to take the voyeur somewhere with a sense of the familiar that has an almost ephemeral and ethereal quality, rather than somewhere specific. With the same reasoning, he does not depict figures to be anyone in particular. "The aim is to portray an essence and emotion rather than a well defined and precise person or location, as I am not interested in set narrative pieces."
To buy any of Steven's work online please visit our online shopping facility at www.strippedartshop.co.uk