Glasfryn Project

Until my mother died I had never worked from photographs. The static one-eyed perspective of the camera had always seemed to disqualify them as source material for paintings, even if I had wanted to.  I studied art at a University in the late 1970’s, when televisions, wall texts and performance art bulked out the programmes of public galleries and shows by living painters were a rarity.  Nevertheless I still believed in painting as a sustained and rigorous interrogation of the visible world in the pursuit of an underlying physical or social structure that was in some sense ‘true’ or ‘real’. This was a conviction I had bought in wholesale from those I considered to be the last exponents of serious figurative painting: David Bomberg, Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff. Using photographs was cheating.

TO READ THIS ARTICLE, CLICK HERE: ‘What I Painted And Why’

David Gledhill has been a professional artist since graduating in 1981, when he won first prize in the Mid Wales Open. He has exhibited widely both in the UK and abroad including Frankfurt, Berlin, Milan and Brussels and is represented by Philips Art Gallery. He is a senior lecturer in Fine Art at the University of Bolton.

In addition to his activity as an artist David has contributed writing and reviews to numerous artist projects and publications. He is co-administrator of Rogue Artists Studios in Manchester, the largest artists studios in the North of England.

His current work centres on the use of both personal and institutional photographic archives to produce sequences of paintings that address historical and political themes through the lived experience of their subjects. He was recently awarded a Cornerhouse (Manchester) commission to produce a film about his work with an East German family photograph album.

Works in the collections of East Sussex County Council, Rank Xerox, Halliwell’s, Touchstones Rochdale and Steven Berkoff.

www.davidgledhill.co.uk/

View all: issue 4, Junction Box | Posted on 1 Mar 2013 |