My top seven from The Figurative Art Fair

In the age of Coronavirus, the online art fair becomes the norm.

The Figurative Art Fair

Thus we have a new online art fair in The Figurative Art Fair - which is currently online on the Mall Galleries website.

It comprises

• 248 works for sale 
• by around 100 elected members of the country’s leading national art societies, including:
• The Pastel Society (PS)
• Royal Society of British Artists (RBA)
• Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (RI)
• Royal Society of Portrait Painters (RP)
• New English Art Club (NEAC)
• Royal Society of Marine Artists (RSMA)
• Society of Wildlife Artists (SWLA)
• Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI)

In the decade of “The Triumphant Return of Figurative Art” (The New York Times, 2015), and at a time of isolation, the societies have come together to celebrate figurative art, contemporary artists, and the spirit of artistic collaboration in their first-ever “figurative” art fair, outside of gallery walls, exclusively online.

All works are for sale and all works are also available for despatch immediately - with FREE delivery!

It's interesting how some artwork I started out to like - and then the photograph was not up to standard and I switched off straight away.  It really highlights why excellent photography is required if you're going to exhibit online. I hasten to add that most have excellent photographs.

Works which caught my eye include the following.

Quince by Charlotte Sorapore

Oil on gesso panel (framed) 35 x 29 cm

This is the one I liked the best - in part because of a really excellent photograph which revealed the wonderful surface of the painting and the mark-making. The light and the optical mixing are also wonderful. A skilled painting of a very simple subject

I'd buy it if I could afford it.

Quince by Charlotte Sorapore

Shallows by Ruth Stage 

Egg tempera (framed) 73 x 83 cm

I'm a big fan of Ruth Stage's egg tempera painting. I wanted to include two but restricted myself to one.  She has a happy knack of abstracting the real and layering up her paintings with paint and marks that make it intensely interesting such that you want to keep on looking at the surface and not just what it represents.

Shallows by Ruth Stage

Leaning Hawthorns by Sarah Bee

Acrylic on gesso primed mount board (framed) 68 x 68 cm

This is a typical Sarah Bee - acrylic underpainting of old and twisted trees and then developed on top through the use of pastel. Each one always looks fresh.

Bonfire at Akeld by Frances Bell

Oil on board (unframed) 36 x 56 cm

Frances works with a very muted and cool palette - and yet always seems to find light within her subject matter

Bonfire at Akeld by Frances Bell

Moment of Majesty, Mt Elijah above Ano Boularii, Sundown by Toby Wiggins

Oil on canvas (framed) 96 x 144 cm

This is big - and reminds me a lot of paintings of New Mexico by both Georgia O'Keeffe (see Georgia O'Keeffe's landscapes of northern New Mexico) and Lydia Baumann (see Painting Georgia O'Keeffe Country). Desert landscapes as a subject are hugely under-rated.

Moment of Majesty, Mt Elijah above Ano Boularii, Sundown by Toby Wiggins

Alcazar Gardens (Seville) by David Curtis (sold)

Oil(framed) 38 x 38 cm

This reminds me of when I visited the Alcazar Gardens and did a pastel painting plein air.

However this is an oil painting. I want to see the brush strokes in every plein air oil painting - and in this one I can. When I look at the enlarged painting it's as if it's in front of me.

I note it has sold and I'm far from surprised.

Social Distancing on the Trent by Chris Myers 

Watercolour (framed) 54 x 102 cm

The title of this one made me smile - because it provides a record of a particular time - and yet it was painted last year. A neat example of how a change of title suddenly makes a painting very relevant and contemporary.

Social Distancing on the Trent by Chris Myers