Figures on a Bed

This painting is a contemporary urban landscape of queer bodies and demonstrates the desire and disquietude that are central concerns in my work. I am preoccupied with how light falls on flesh and how bodies can coalesce with their surroundings. This painting is informed by my experience of living as a queer man in the heart of London. When I had a studio in Vauxhall (which could be called a very gay part of London) I was aware that all around me gay men were meeting on hook-up apps for anonymous sex and drug-taking. I felt I couldn't ignore this intense and strange human interaction as subject matter however transgressive or hard to understand especially as it was going on in my community. I painted on random squares of old newspaper which I de-acidified so as to ensure the longevity of the painting. I chose newspaper because the printed matter interrupts the surface and interferes with the painted marks with a kind of soft violence that I found appropriate and beautiful. I also like the counterplay between the intimacy of the bodies but also their anonymity and the anonymity of the city and the twenty-four-hour news cycle.

2020

oil on de-acidified newsprint on linen

150.0 x 150.0cm

IP2105

Text & images © James Dearlove
Artist portrait by Richard Stedman