THE END OF THE NIGHT is a collection of oil paintings exploring the figure in moments of violent opposition and quite compassion. These paintings are the result of studying the palettes of Diego Velázquez, Van Dyck, Francisco de Goya and Frans Hals, among others.

In reaction to the contempoary art scene Llewellyn decided to return to studying the older craft of painting and employs here a more restrained, and sensitive palette, and sparing use of paint. This appreciation for the painting skills of the 1600 -1800’s fused with the dislocation of the figure and reality within the work of Bacon, Picasso and Giacometti and the psychological power of the portrait are the main themes explored in this body of work

Las Meninas or any Hals ensemble are as staged as these fight scenes and vignettes of tenderness.The medium changes from paint, to film, to photo, to paint, but the basic instinct – to  convey the extremes and intimacies of human interaction – remain constant.

“While the works at the present time are still grounded in a somewhat faithful realism, it is my intention that I learn from  the techniques of certain painters and on that foundation begin to gradually apply a subversive painted reality upon this strata.

One can only hope that with time the traditonal representation of the figure and the more allusive expressive qualities I am searching for will fuse into a rewarding exploration of paint and the question of the image and the human figure, and give way to a new path.”

In so doing Llewellyn pits the Golden age of painting against what some may consider the golden age of cinema and through that layering of eras and aesthetics recaptures and reintroduces lost notions of beauty

The End of the Night will open on the 9 – October 2010 at Staatsgalerie Prenzlauer Berg and will run untill the 7 of November 2010

Krina Despota

Oct 2010 - Berlin