Whatever estimate may be placed upon Lucian Freud's 'naked portraits' by future generations, it is unlikely that they will ever be attributed to any time other than ours. Just as the regents and regentesses of Frans Hals (a painter with whom Freud has something in common) unquestionably belong to seventeenth- century Holland, so Freud's subjects seem indubitably to be children of this troubled century. Their modernity is not in question.
Read MoreAll Too Human: Leon Kossof /
‘Although I have drawn and painted from landscapes and people constantly I have never finished a picture without first experiencing a huge emptying of all factual and topographical knowledge,’ writes Leon Kossoff. ‘And always, the moment before finishing, the painting disappears, sometimes into greyness for ever, or sometimes into a huge heap on the floor to be reclaimed, redrawn and committed to an image which makes itself.’
Read MoreAll Too Human: David Bomberg /
David Bomberg drew a charcoal self-portrait in 1932 when he was 42 years old. As a young man he had been widely acclaimed for his ‘avant-garde’ paintings but when he became disillusioned with modernism interest in his work withered. The slant of his eyes and the line of his lips reveal both his contempt for the critics who shunned him and his stubborn determination. The strength of the heavy, binding outline joining the dome of the skull to that proud jaw seems like a declaration that he is not a broken man.
Read MoreAndy Warhol /
Peter Fuller's controversial views on Andy Warhol were at the root of his argument on aesthetics, now that the second draft of my screenplay about my father Modern Art is complete, I've decided it's time to start posting his most significant works. The below televised debate caused a huge stir when he was able to take on a room full of intellectuals on the subject of Warhol's work and what it means for the world.
Read MoreIridescent Demon Dramas /
Iridescent demon dramas play beast like games and pour city champagne over dusty draws that sparkle in my guts. Pushed back into the past, where Romance joined it's aweful tune to the trumpet tunnels of the sky. Baskets of fruit usher summertime and the deep unending questions I feel too small to answer, too big for the little things, too small for the cosmos.
Read MoreEchoes Of You - Open Letter with Christopher Lyndon Gee /
During my first lead role in an amateur theatre production of Shakespeare's the Tempest when I was 13 years old, a well established avant-garde conductor called Christopher Lyndon-Gee came to the performance, after the show he walked out and shook my hand, 'he said you truly do have the natural gift'. It was one of the few moments I can remember which set my course as an actor, it was a fuse which was lit early on with a determination that has never dulled. He later wrote my letter of recommendation for Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
Read MoreJulian Schnabel: Images Of God /
Over the last four years I have seen a good many of Schnabel’s paintings, but I had not, until this exhibition, set eyes on one that manifested any painterly qualities at all. I was therefore pleasantly surprised to look at a picture like Alexander Pope, which indicates that Schnabel could conceivably learn to draw; or at Seed, which shows that, after all, he might have some decorative sensibility. Drawing and decorative sensibility are, you must understand, two of the necessary prerequisites for good painting.
Read MoreRebel poem /
Rebel artist, rebel against the father, rebel with the river, rebel bending time, bending lines bending all that’s mine, he makes what’s his and gives it back to the great unending shimmer. I’ll give to you if I freely choose, I’ll walk my limping gate, my rebel friend, I’ll be there in the end, rebel makes his own chewed up calamity in time, rebel’s wish they had more than just their solitude to offer, a sorry piece of meat wrapped flimsy round his wrist, he hides the true prize made valor, mist and sin.
Read MorePatrick Heron at TATE St Ives - Essay by Peter Fuller 1981 /
Patrick Heron is having a major retrospective exhibition at TATE St Ives until September 30th 2018, in support of one of Britain's most accomplished painters I wanted to post my father Peter Fuller's essay discussing his work, their relationship and foreshadowing his longevity from 1981.
Read MoreThe Poet & The Actor /
The poet fights the ardor of his recompense, asking forgiveness for his follies in constant battle with the universe of the mind. Poetry’s unlimited potential reaches out across the universe of the mind its unlimited potential reaches out across the multitude of time, filtering only back to the passing minutes and seconds of reacting soundbites when limited consciousness is distracted by the comings and goings of it all.
Read MoreMushroom Cleopatra /
Wealth flow with clicking fingers over Apple men, foreign lands cast in bronze drape Cleopatra’s neck, Momento Mori shining heavy, she golden clad, sex laden, jewel beset and roughly tempered.
Read More"THE METHOD" LEGACY: Foundations; Phantom Day-Lewis & BOVTS - Part I /
Last Sunday after the ceremony, sitting in the Roosevelt after party sipping a gin cocktail after the show, where the first Oscars were held, I contemplated on the proceedings and the history of acting in film which has led us here. It seemed inappropriate to write or publish this in anticipation of the Oscars, because I didn't think he would win this year, he didn't think he would win this year "it's been great just to sit back and watch Gary collect his dues", I felt as many did it would be Gary for Darkest Hour. So this piece is something of a reflection of what we have lost, and the mantle now left to young leading men, like Timothée Chalamet, or those unknowns challenging the guard with independent films as Day-Lewis once did with My Beautiful Launderette or My Left Foot.
Read MoreELYSIUM VERTO /
The epochal and transforming convulsions in the shape of our world is causing ruptures in civilization. The ice flows are breaking up, the earths plates are shifting and clutching together to form something new. But what is happening to us? History is being re-written.
Read MoreDavid Hockney: All the World’s a Stage /
'Well, I'm not that interested in the theatre itself,' David Hockney said in 1970. 'I did one play. I designed Ubu Roi. When I was doing that, I suddenly realised that a theatrical device in painting is quite different to a theatrical device in theatre.' He added, 'I'm really not interested in theatre design or anything.'
Read MoreHOWARD HODGKIN & Robert Natkin by Peter Fuller /
Howard Hodgkin died earlier this year, he was perhaps the most prominent abstract artist to come out of Britain. The American painter Robert Natkin, a lesser known abstract expressionist and the one American painter my father Peter Fuller chose to champion. Studying Abstract Expressionism at the moment for the development of a new film project, though I never naturally gravitated to abstraction in my own aesthetic. I find it strange Natkin is often left out of the dialogue as his paintings are so beautiful. This article, first published in Modern Painters in 1988, remains a tribute to all three men. At this time Peter was exploring spiritual and transcendental ideas, establishing a new religious order out of art. Abstraction usually pushed reimagining of the natural world too far out even for Peter's line of thinking, but he accepted the challenge when it came to these two men, Natkin in particular.
Read MoreADRIAN BERG BY PETER FULLER /
"That day we met at the front door of the house and he said, 'I'm writing art criticism for a magazine', and I replied, 'You can write on me. I've a show'. Although he was living in a room on the floor below my studio looking out on the same view so that he would be familiar with the subject, I could not have expected anything to come of it. He was just down from Cambridge. The year was 1968. When I had a retrospective in Rochdale, he took the trouble to see it, and to get that organ of the new puritanism Art Monthly eventually to publish his review. I have been able to attribute the opposition of all other critics to his support. While I was a first of sorts for him, he was a one and only." - Adrian Berg
Read MoreOmens II /
The search for beauty is so often underpinned by a rugged brutality, stringent, uncompromising quest to prevail, exclusivity, a climb, a struggle, a ruthless clawing at the flimsy veins of the existence which pretend and shelter. One begins to claw, because of a feeling of not knowing, or of knowledge that there must be more.
Read MoreMaggi Hambling /
In Minotaur Surprised while Eating of 1986-7 the beast, half-man, half-animal, is shown devouring a joint of human flesh, morsels of which hang down from his bovine jaw. He glances out at us with a look of apprehension in his piercing eyes, which seem as human as his hands.
Read MoreOmens I /
In many ways this story begins last September, at the San Diego International Film Festival where the rag tag bunch of renegades that are the Road To The Well crew, scrambled through the streets of San Diego from our screenings of obscure indie dramas to the Oscar hopefuls in Lion, and a special preview of Hidden Figures. It was a handful of studio backed mega dramas versus the new wave of young penniless independent filmmakers trying to complete against the majors with empty pockets, David & Goliath.
Read MoreFunisophical Dances With Films Interview w Film Snobbery /
This Funisophical interview with Film Snobbery at Dances With Films for Road To The Well