Craig Wylie
The terms "Photorealism" and "Hyperrealism" tend to be used interchangeably for certain kinds of realist painting - perhaps, obviously, of the most realistic kinds of painting. There may well be no practical differences in the ways the two kinds of painting are originated and elaborated. But there are surely some differences in the effect the two kinds have on the spectator. If anyone can make clear what these differences might be, it is Craig Wylie.
A true Photorealist painter glories in the photographic connection. He (or sometimes she) not only uses photographs as source material, but may even make it explicit that he is painting a photograph rather than the reality within the photograph. At the very least, the distortions inevitable to a photograph are lovingly reproduced, in full consciousness that the human eye unaided does not, cannot, perceive things that way.
Wylie is not that kind of painter. He is undoubtedly a realist: his outlines are usually hard, his forms clearly defined. He has deep concern for colour and texture, not merely because they are there, but for what they contribute to the overall composition, the patterns of tension and relaxation within the painting. Wylie's art is meticulously thought out, in its way very intellectual. It is all from reality, but reality carefully selected and rearranged in the light of the painter's very specific intentions.
In other words, Wylie is essentially a classical sort of painter: so much so that from his work we might be uncertain whether he had ever set eyes on a camera. It is notable that in discussions of his BP Portrait Prize winner K (2008), Craig talks in terms of a number of sittings - the sitter being his longtime girlfriend - rather than revealing the exact camera used and the exposures required. No doubt he does use photographs, if only as a sort of sketchbook, but the precise reproduction of one photograph in paint has never been part of his plan. All this might almost suggest too much calculation on the part of the painter, especially when he goes on to theorise about the effect of the very large scale he has chosen, but the painting itself rebuffs any such notion, coming over as quite fresh and spontaneous. And it certainly makes it clear that Wylie's painting is not the work of an adept copyist, mechanically reproducing a single photograph, but of an artist who thinks deeply and effectively about his art.
Excerpt from “Exactitude, Hyperrealist Art Today”, by John Russell Taylor (Plus One Publishing)
BORN 1973, Masvingo, Zimbabwe
EDUCATIONBFA with Distiction, RhodesUniversity, Grahamstown, South Africa
RESIDES London
AWARDS
2008- 1st Prize, BP Portrait Prize, National Portrait Gallery, London
2001- Shortlisted for Hunting Prizes, Winning London Region Prize, RoyalCollege of Art
2001- 2nd Prize, Young Artists Award, Royal Institute of Oil Painters, Mall Galleries, London
2001- 3rd Prize, Young Artists Award, Royal Institute of Oil Painters, Mall Galleries, London
1996- Volkskas Bank Atelier Award Exhibition - Johannesburg, South Africa
1996- Rowney Painting Prize, Top final year student, Rhodes University, South Africa
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2010- “Sun Silence Stopped”, Plus One Gallery, London
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2012- “Face Value”, 9 Feb Contemporary by Angela Li, Hong Kong, China
2011- “Celebrating 10 Years”, Plus One Gallery, London
2011- “Colourless green ideas sleep furiously”, , Galerie DukanHourdequin, Paris
2011- “That's what friends are for”, Neuer Kunstverein Aschaffenburg, Germany
2011- Galerie Dukan & Hourdequin, Switzerland; and ScopeNY, New York
2010- “Scope Basel”, Galerie Dukan & Hourdequin, Basel, Switzerland
2010- “Art Chicago”, Jonathan Cooper
2009- “Scope Basel”, Galerie Dukan & Hourdequin, Basel, Switzerland
2009- “Exactitude”, Plus One Gallery, London
2009- “Mystery Portrait Postcard”, National Portrait Gallery, London
2009- “BP Portrait Award”, Aberystwyth Arts
2008- “BP Portrait Award”, AberdeenArtGallery
2008- “BP Portrait Award”, WolverhamptonArtGallery
2008- “Southern African Artists Abroad”, Hodnett Fine Art, Vancouver, Canada
2008- “20th Anniversary Exhibition”, Jonathan Cooper, London
2008- 2005- “BP Portrait Award”, National Portrait Gallery, London
2008- 2000- “London Art Fair”, Business Design Centre, Islington, London
2008- 2000- “ArtLondon”, Duke of York's Headquarters, London
2007- “ArtDC”, Washington, USA
2007, 2002 & 2001- Royal Institute of Oil Painters, Mall Galleries, London
2006- “Secret Portrait”, National Portrait Gallery, London
2006- “The Portrait”, Ashwin St, London
2006- “Diminishing Returns”, Project Space, London Art Fair, Business Design Centre, London
2004- Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa
2004, 2002 & 2001- Royal Society Of Portrait Painters, Mall Galleries, London
2003- “Barts Barn”, Alsberg, Germany
2002- Plus One Gallery, London
2002- Highgate Fine Art, London
2001- “Fresh Art”, Business Design Centre, Islington, London
2001- “Hunting Art Prizes”, RCA
2000- “Starting a collection”, Art First, Cork St, London
2000- “Show it again” , Neuer Kunstverein, Aschaffenburg, Germany
1998- “Coming of age - contempoprary art from Zimbabwe”, Neuer Kunstverein, Aschaffenburg, Germany
1997- “Craig Wylie – Paintings”, Karen Mckerron, Johannesburg
1996- “Volkskas Bank Atelier Award Exhibition”, Johannesburg, South Africa
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
2010- “AZART” in: Le magazine international de la peinture” (p.30, Issue 46, Sept/Oct)
2009- “The return of realism”, in: Poets & Artists (pp. 110-117, Nov/Dec, download pdf) 2009- “Retrato Contemporaneo” in: Arte Al Limite magazine (pp. 66-71, Issue 38 Oct/Nov, download pdf / english translation available)
2009- “EXACTITUDE - Hyperrealist Art Today” by John Russell Taylor (Thames & Hudson, pp. 342-351)
2008- Feature in: Art of England Magazine, (September)
2008- The South African Art Times (July, 6l1tfnfjdmsmzstrwaa.pdf)
2008- The Times, Review by Sarah Vine (10th June)
2008- “Artist Wylie wins Portrait Award”, BBC News Online ( 2008- “Portrait of Lover wins BP Prize”, by Mark Brown in: The Guardian (17th June, 2008- The Scotsman (25th April)
2008- “Prize for portrait of the artist's girlfriend”, The Independent (17th June)
2008- ‘BP portrait award 2008: The shortlist’, in: The Guardian (24 April, )
2008- “Best of British” in: Country Life (March)
2006- Feature in: Artists & Illustrators (September)
2006- “Masterclass”, in: The Artist Magazine (September)
2006- The Metro (May 24)
2004- Cover of South West Magazine (November)
2004- Cover of The Green Magazine (November)
2004- Country Magazine (October/November)
2003- Sunday Telegraph Magazine (21 June)
2001- Art Review (February)
1998- “Coming Of Age- Contemporary Art from Zimbabwe”, in: Forum Aschaffenburg (August)
1998- "Coming of Age - Contemporary Art from Zimbabwe" in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (3 August, Frankfurt, Germany)
1998- "Coming of Age - Contemporary Art from Zimbabwe" in: Rhein-Main-Zeitung, Frankfurt, Germany (3 August)
1997- “Craig Wylie at Karen Mckerron” in: Business Day, Arts Section (30 August, Johannesburg, South Africa)
1997- “Craig Wylie at Karen Mckerron” in: Argus, Arts Section (30 August, Johannesburg, South Africa)
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
“On a formal level this work is about contradiction. I wanted to use a strictly classical composition, formal, even stiff, and then try to subvert the stillness these tenets imply. This internal friction between elements in the painting give it its quiet dynamism.
“The gravity of the sitters expression, enhanced by overhead light from the skylight in my studio has as counterpoint, the crisp whiteness of the shirt, the irony and visual lightness of pink in the bright cardigan and spots.
“The compression created by the stripes on the shirt, accompanied by the variation in spots and colour are also complimented in opposition by the grey/green background colour which in itself is a contradiction as it implies depth but also appears to be a flat colourfield. This uncluttered quality is further irritated into balance by the texture and detailing of the cardigan and the undulating topography of form created through top lighting.
“Through these internal conflicts a visual magnetic torsion grips the structure of this work and propels the attitude of the sitter.
“Contradiction is again apparent in the way size operates in this piece. Enlargement creates for the viewer both a confrontational vortex and a sacrifice to scrutiny as the viewer can step into the paintings personal space in a way not possible with smaller works. Gigantism also affects the psychological edge of the sitter. On one level the viewers intrusion into the sitters emotional state is tacitly accepted, on another it is positively rebuffed.”
(For BP Portrait Award 2008)
PRESS RELEASE
Press Release: Sun Silence Stopped, PlusOneGallery2010:
Wylie states that he "believes in the transformative power of painting. That it still has the capacity to move people, to breakdown temporal normality and extend the senses beyond the picture plane, to thoroughly intoxicate the viewer and bring them back to reality enriched." The startling sense of presence in Wylie's work reflects this belief and comes from having spent years painting directly from life. He is able to extract from his photographs the subjects buried within and bring them to life with a unique painterly touch and extraordinary sense of colour.
Wylie says of painting large heads, "I liked the idea of the head being body height, corpulent. As I'd removed the body so increasing the head size as if it had ingested it's own body seemed like a good idea." The large scale of some of the paintings reinforces this physicality and removes the work from normal perception.
Working directly from a laptop screen, he combines both the incidental light of photography and the actual light passing through the images he works from, giving his paintings an unusual depth and clarity of light and colour. The complex visual play between surface and subject, the sense of ingrained time through the application of many layers of paint over a long period seem to create an uncanny sense of the still figures imminent movement. The subjects depicted seem to have an actual presence, sometimes haunting, in confluence with the viewers own. This may be due to the symbiotic relationship between paint and subject, each pushing the other in a constant jostle which seems to be the perpetual life in stillness that good paintings have.
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