Colin Davidson (b.1968) Standing Figure Oil on canvas, 127...
Colin Davidson (b.1968) Standing Figure Oil on canvas, 127 x 101.5 (50 x 39¾'') Signed, inscribed and dated 2019 verso
Painted in 2019, the present work was awarded the inaugural Fergus Ahern Award at the Boyle Arts Festival, County Roscommon, in the same year. This distinction underscores the importance of the painting within Davidson's wider practice: a work that brings together his assured handling of the human figure and his growing interest in paint as a material in its own right. Both intimate and physically assertive, Standing Figure offers a revealing insight into the artistic enquiry that would lead Davidson towards his recent three-dimensional works, so recently seen in Dublin's Royal Hibernian Academy and at Chateau La Coste in Provence.
A compelling study of the nude figure, Standing Figure exemplifies Colin Davidson's enduring fascination with the expressive and tactile possibilities of paint. Executed with vigorous, sweeping brushstrokes and a richly worked surface, the painting presents the human form as something almost sculptural, emerging from a softly atmospheric ground of slate blue, muted sage, warm ochre and delicate blush pink. The figure is deliberately indistinct, its features and anatomy subsumed into the physical act of painting itself. Rather than relying on precise delineation, Davidson allows the accumulated layers of pigment to suggest the body's weight, volume and presence.
The work is particularly significant in anticipating the artist's explorations of three-dimensional painting and sculpture. The heavily built-up passages of impasto, scraped edges and gestural marks transform the painted surface into a palpable, almost relief-like presence. Here, paint does not simply describe the figure; it becomes a means of giving the figure substance. This interplay between representation and materiality lends the work an immediacy and vitality, while the restricted, harmonious palette enhances its contemplative quality.
Born in Belfast in 1968, Davidson graduated with First Class Honours in Art and Design from the University of Ulster in 1991. Although internationally acclaimed for his large-scale portraits of prominent cultural and political figures, including Queen Elizabeth II, Bill Clinton and Seamus Heaney, his practice encompasses a much broader range of subjects, from urban landscapes and reflections to still lifes and the nude. His sustained investigation of the physical qualities of oil paint has increasingly led him towards works that occupy the territory between painting and sculpture, extending the possibilities of the traditional painted image.
Colin Davidson (b.1968) Standing Figure Oil on canvas, 127 x 101.5 (50 x 39¾'') Signed, inscribed and dated 2019 verso
Painted in 2019, the present work was awarded the inaugural Fergus Ahern Award at the Boyle Arts Festival, County Roscommon, in the same year. This distinction underscores the importance of the painting within Davidson's wider practice: a work that brings together his assured handling of the human figure and his growing interest in paint as a material in its own right. Both intimate and physically assertive, Standing Figure offers a revealing insight into the artistic enquiry that would lead Davidson towards his recent three-dimensional works, so recently seen in Dublin's Royal Hibernian Academy and at Chateau La Coste in Provence.
A compelling study of the nude figure, Standing Figure exemplifies Colin Davidson's enduring fascination with the expressive and tactile possibilities of paint. Executed with vigorous, sweeping brushstrokes and a richly worked surface, the painting presents the human form as something almost sculptural, emerging from a softly atmospheric ground of slate blue, muted sage, warm ochre and delicate blush pink. The figure is deliberately indistinct, its features and anatomy subsumed into the physical act of painting itself. Rather than relying on precise delineation, Davidson allows the accumulated layers of pigment to suggest the body's weight, volume and presence.
The work is particularly significant in anticipating the artist's explorations of three-dimensional painting and sculpture. The heavily built-up passages of impasto, scraped edges and gestural marks transform the painted surface into a palpable, almost relief-like presence. Here, paint does not simply describe the figure; it becomes a means of giving the figure substance. This interplay between representation and materiality lends the work an immediacy and vitality, while the restricted, harmonious palette enhances its contemplative quality.
Born in Belfast in 1968, Davidson graduated with First Class Honours in Art and Design from the University of Ulster in 1991. Although internationally acclaimed for his large-scale portraits of prominent cultural and political figures, including Queen Elizabeth II, Bill Clinton and Seamus Heaney, his practice encompasses a much broader range of subjects, from urban landscapes and reflections to still lifes and the nude. His sustained investigation of the physical qualities of oil paint has increasingly led him towards works that occupy the territory between painting and sculpture, extending the possibilities of the traditional painted image.
