Nathan Ford

As a child Nathan Ford remembers being chided by his mother for persistently asking why at the tail end of explanations.  One is tempted, on perusing his latest collection of work, to remark that he has yet to lose this childhood habit, and in fact has decided to go into the question in detail.  ‘Contradiction is the only consistency’, he offers when asked to articulate the substance of his work. 

Whether in portraiture or in contemporary transitory urban settings, Ford’s paintings act like a visual dialectic. The sheer energy and excitement of the work is founded in an ability to juggle seemingly contradictory forces.  They weave and wend their way from figurative to abstract, from accessible to challenging, from precise to enigmatic, restrained and cut loose throughout by the paint’s animate desire to do its own thing. 

‘Pulse’, one of two very large canvasses, takes as a backdrop the telescopically long arched interior of an urban railway station.  The eye is drawn to the blue light of day at the tunnel’s end, a movement enlivened by the atmospheric hustle.  Though no human figure is directly represented, there is the sense of crowd, of the observation of an urban mass of people from a point of isolation.  It is this stasis, the feeling of  standing still while the world goes about its business, that makes the work so compelling. 

The portraits are also imbued with the same earthiness and vigour, and, particularly in the larger works, there is the familiar mix of coherence and dissolution.  Rather than merely representing likeness, one discerns the sense of a search for something essential, a raw ‘state of being’ reminiscent of Bacon or Schiele.  This passionate feeling of inquiry, almost a quiet desperation, is expressed in a simplicity of line that calls to mind the wonderfully searching portraits by Giacometti of Jean Genet, and of his brother Diego. 

With this latest body of work Nathan Ford takes us on an absorbing journey, one that fizzes with energy, yet which is also full of unabashed, forthright observation, as well as a maturity and confidence that belies his relative youth.  His ongoing response to the universal childhood question why,  these canvasses are battlegrounds of inquiry where the viewer may discern something of themselves and their own world.  As the poet Paul Celane put it, ‘Reality is not simply there.  It must be sought for and won.’

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS:

Beaux Arts Bath, Solo Exhibition (2003)

Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, London
(1997, 2003)

Royal Institute of Oil Painters, Mall Galleries, London
(1999 to 2004)

Slice, Jacob’s Market, Cardiff (2003)

Affordable Art Fair, New York (2001 to 2004)

Affordable Art Fair, London (2000 to 2004)

Fairfax Gallery, Tunbridge Wells (2002 to 2004)

Royal Society of British Artists, Mall Galleries, London
(2001)

St. David’s Studio Gallery, Pembrokeshire
(1997 to 2004)

Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Mall Galleries, London (1999)

Young Artists’ Britain, Hampton Court Palace, London (1999)

Royal West of England Academy, Bristol (2001)

Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers, Livery Hall, London (1998)

Naked, The Concourse Gallery, London (1998)

New English Art Club, Mall Galleries, London (2000)

BP Awards, National Portrait Gallery, London (2000)

The Prince’s Foundation, London (2001)

West Coast Art Fair, San Francisco (2000)

Awards  

ROI - Winsor & Newton Young Artist of the Year Award 1st Prize (2001, 2003) 2nd Prize (1999, 2000)

RBA - Gordon Hulson Memorial Prize (2001)

Young Artists’ Britain - The Prince of Wales’s Young Artists’ Award (1999)

The Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers bursary in painting (1998)

Full scholarship to study at Byam Shaw School of Art (1997)