"I am interested in stretching human emotion and to create distorts of the face to its limit before it disintegrates."
Known for his visually charged figure paintings, Antony Micallef (1975, UK) has enjoyed international success ever since he was granted the second place award of the BP Portrait Awards of 2000, hosted at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Micallef’s recent series of works are a complete departure from his earlier artworks. He builds up a relief-like surface with heavy paint to depict a figurative mass in front of a muted background. By using an impasto technique, the material is pushed to it’s extreme and blurs our reading of painting and sculpture. Confronted with the sheer physicality of the painting as an object, the depicted subject takes on it’s own life and existence. Furthermore, the use of gestural abstraction resonates with the traditions of action painting from the 1940s and the School of London from the 1970s.
Antony Micallef is a British contemporary artist and painter working in London. His art is exhibited in numerous collections all over the world, and was part of group shows held in institutions such as the National Portrait Gallery, The Royal Academy, Tate Britain, and the ICA London.