11 Artists Revisiting the Gradient in Contemporary Art
Trends in Contemporary Art
Top 25 British Contemporary Figurative Painters
A Reasoned Anthology
Introduction: British Painting and Figuration
It is fair to say the United Kingdom has always had a strong affinity toward painting and art in general. As a result, when it comes to art, it is no surprise to ascertain the rich history, heritage, and connection rooted in the DNA of Britain. Think of the 18th century Grand Tours, artists such as J. M. W. Turner or John Constable, the dazzling collection of the British Museum, or the democratic policy towards the availability and accessibility of this collection and heritage for the British people.
One must not travel too far in time to discover the prolific importance of the United Kingdom in the art world. When it comes to figurative painting in recent art history, there have been several British painters who are of vital importance for the renewed interest in figurative painting in the 70s and 80s of the previous century, as well as for figurative painters today.
The protagonists I am referring to are the prominent representatives of the so-called School of London. The term was initiated in the 70s by the American R.B. Kitaj (1932-2007) to describe a specific group of London-based painters on the occasion of an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London, which consisted of exclusively figurative drawings and paintings. In an era dominated by abstract, Conceptual, and Minimal Art, the figurative pursuit of the artists in question was controversial and contested but also immersive and inspiring.[1]
Today, these prominent representatives of the School of London are the most essential (figurative) painters of our recent past, such as Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, and David Hockney. For instance, the impulses of the School of London co-initiated with Neo-Expressionism of the 80s and 90s, as well as the general trend of New European Painting. Even today, these iconic figures are marked by the current international wave of New Figurative Painting.
However, for this article, we aren’t aiming to offer a retrospective overview of the British canon of recent art history and painting. We aim to present a relevant sketch of the current landscape of contemporary figurative painters. Doing so, an objective, argued, measurable, and thus reasoned selection of the top 25 living British painters originated.
Please note, hence the art world is continuously subject to change. The top 25 list is not to be interpreted as a ranking but as a cross-section of the most influential and essential artists based on objective career facts and data. If you are an artist, read our article on How To Succeed As an Artist. Or, feel free to head over to our Services for artists, to get featured on CAI or request professional 1-on-1 advice.
1. David Hockney
David Hockney, born in 1937 in Bradford, England, resides and works in Normandy, France. We have mentioned Hockney in our introduction when discussing the School of London. Yet again, I aim to stress the importance of Hockney as a genuine living icon of contemporary art and British (figurative) painting.
Hockney’s career and oeuvre are strongly marked by his personal experiences and environment, pioneering British Pop Art and beyond. In the 60s, the British artist moved to California, resulting in his internationally lauded and characteristic paintings of the exotic and sensual life by the pool and palm trees.[2]
For further reading on David Hockney, we highly recommend the magnificent monograph David Hockney published in 2017.
2. Peter Doig
Peter Doig, born in 1959 in Edinburgh, Scotland, lives and works in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and Tobago. As with David Hockney, Doig is one of the more important figures from our selection of twenty-five artists and is one of the world’s most influential artists today.
Doig is known for his dreamlike paintings drenched in an aura of an enigma. The source material for his images are most often, photographs, films, etchings, and personal memories. Doig grew up in Canada, which influenced his work. Think of the lakes, forests, canoes, and cabins, characteristic recurring motives within the oeuvre of the illustrious British painter.[3]
Discover more about Peter Doig by reading Peter Doig by the highly rated Phaidon Contemporary Art Series.
3. Glenn Brown
Glenn Brown, born in Hexham, England, lives and works in London and Suffolk, England. Brown has distinguished himself with his dynamic trompe-l’oeils of heavy impastos, which in reality are smooth two-dimensional strokes of paint.
With this characteristic imagery, Brown examines art history and popular culture and found images as source material to distort and manipulate. Brown often takes on classical paintings or poses with his colorful and eclectic style.[4]
For further reading, we highly recommend the recently published Glenn Brown: And Thus we Existed.
4. Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, born in 1977 in London, England, resides and works in London, England. The internationally reputed artist is known for her captivating imagery of mostly black human figures in isolated and dark backgrounds.
The Future Generation Art Prize-winner follows her natural intuition when painting, marked by delicate and robust brushstrokes. As a black female artist, one interprets her works from a socio-political and activist perspective. However, the starting point is always the language of painting and its history.[5]
Discover more works by reading our artist spotlight on Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, or have a look at her recently published monograph Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly in the League of the Night.
5. Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili, born in 1968 in Manchester, England, resides and works in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and Tobago. The British painter is known for his colorful palette and textures via collages of glitter, dots, and more, resulting in impressive and characteristic tableaus.[6]
The YBA (Young British Artists) Turner Prize-Winner examines Nigerian history, African culture, black stereotypes, and exoticism in a narrative inspired by various issues such as religion, film, popular culture, and personal experiences.[7] For further reading, I strongly recommend Chris Ofili: Night and Day.
6. Jenny Saville
Jenny Saville, born in 1970 in Cambridge, England, resides and works in Oxford, England. Saville, an original YBA member, is known for her captivating paintings, merging a Rubens-like appetite for voluptuous bodies with Cubism, American abstraction, and photographic figuration.[8]
The works by the hand of the British painter are characterized by her fascination and pathological perceptions of the body. As a result, Saville depicts meaty and grotesque human bodies, mostly female. Issues such as obesity, gender binary, beauty ideal, the individual perception of the body, and more, are discussed in a dialogue dominated by the flesh.[9]
Read Jenny Saville to discover more works by the charismatic female artist.
7. Mark Alexander
Mark Alexander, born in 1966 in Horsham, West Sussex, England, resides and works in Berlin, Germany.
His work is marked by his reinterpretations of iconic images of the past, such as cultural objects such as the Shield of Achilles or famous portraits. His paintings are characterized by labor-intensive brushwork. These meticulously rendered paintings combine classicism, photography, and contemporary photorealism.
8. Nigel Cooke
Nigel Cooke, born in Manchester, England, resides and works in Kent, England. Cooke is known for his atmospheric paintings, depicting figures woven into their environment.
The British painter balances between figuration and abstraction, resulting in a distorted visual language. This fragmentation results in a certain ambiguity, where one is not sure anymore if the painting is a portrait, a landscape, a still life, a figurative painting, or an abstract composition.[10]
For further reading, discover more works in the monograph Nigel Cooke: Painting.
9. Kaye Donachie
Kaye Donachie, born in Glasgow, Scotland, lives and works in London, England.
Donachie is known for her portraits, primarily of female figures and leaders, rendered in muted skin tone and cold tones. One can not help but point out the mysterious character of her works. The images have a dreamlike quality, drifting between reality and utopia, rejecting the possibility of a narrative.[11]
10. Ged Quinn
Ged Quinn, born in Liverpool, England, lives and works in Cornwall, England. Quinn is known for his densely laced paintings, combining art history with symbolism, surrealism, and postmodern eclecticism.
As a result, the British painter draws upon mythological references and the tradition of landscape painting, still-life painting, and more. From a contemporary perspective, Quinn examines postmodern and eclectic topics such as religion, politics, literature, and film, resisting interpretation.[12]
11. Wolfe von Lenkiewicz
Wolfe von Lenkiewicz, born in Dartmoor, England, lives and works in London, England. The British artist with German-Polish-Jewish roots is known for reconfiguring art history’s most iconic pictures.
Von Lenkiewicz studied philosophy in the 90s, focusing on epistemology, which is strongly reflected in his works as a painter. The paintings by Von Lenkiewicz continuously refer to philosophy. He examines the concept of authorship by manipulating old master paintings with 21st-century tools and esthetics.[13]
For further reading, discover the monograph, Wolfe Von Lenkiewicz.
12. Caroline Walker
Caroline Walker was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and lives and works in London, England. Walker is known for her intimate and often large in scale paintings of women in domestic scenes of everyday life.
Her works cross the boundaries of the public and the private, leaving the viewer feeling like a voyeur gazing into the private spheres of the depicted subject. Her paintings have a strong narrative character, although the psychological narrative seems to subvert the primary setting. As a result, Walker explores gender identity, femininity, and the socio-economic position of women.[14]
Discover her works in the monograph Caroline Walker: Janet.
13. James White
James White, born in 1967 in Tiverton, England, lives and works in London, England. White is known for his photorealistic black-and-white paintings of everyday objects and views.
With his camera, White searches his environment for exciting objects, settings, and views. By photographing these objects, White transfer this specific moment in time, a snapshot of reality, into painting. Within these paintings, an inexplicable poetry resides, commenting on contemporary life and humanity without depicting a single person.[15]
14. Paul Winstanley
Paul Winstanley, born in 1954 in Manchester, England, lives and works in London, England.
The British painter has established himself as one of the most important painters with his characteristic painted images of so-called semi-public spaces. Winstanley depicts a series of works examining rooms such as lobbies, airports, waiting rooms, et cetera.[16]
Discover 59 paintings by Paul Winstanley by reading his publication Paul Winstanley: 59 Paintings: In which the Artist Considers the Proces of Thinking about and Making Work.
15. Clare Woods
Clare Woods, born in Southampton, England, lives and works in Hereford, England. She is known for sculpting images in paint, resulting in large-scale and voluptuous impasto paintings.
Woods is trained as a sculptor resulting in a very physical manner in which she applies paint onto the canvas. She translates her sculptural language into two-dimensional imagery, tackling topics such as fragility, vulnerability, mortality, and disability.[17]
16. Gillian Carnegie
Gillian Carnegie, born in Suffolk, England, lives and works in London, England.
Often following the traditional categories of painting, Carnegie occupies herself with still life painting, landscapes, figure painting, and portraiture with a contemporary twist. Her representational visual language is characterized by the reflective nature of her painted subjects.
17. Ken Currie
Ken Currie, born in North Shield, England, lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. The Scottish artist is known for his unsettling paintings of human figures.
Currie’s works are marked by figuration, fear, and violence. The Glasgow School of Art graduate, who emerged from the so-called New Glasgow Boys in the 80s, tackles the horrors of today and how we experience these horrors. Flesh, blood, and meat are the main protagonists in his dark and surreal settings.[18]
18. Laura Lancaster
Laura Lancaster was born in Hartlepool, England. She lives and works in Newcastle, England. Lancaster makes paintings from found images such as photographs and stills from films.
The balance of figuration and abstraction characterizes the works of the British painter. The abstraction of the brushstrokes often takes over the image. However, the figuration remains present and functions as a guideline for the composition, resulting in a dreamlike vision.[19]
19. Justin Mortimer
Justin Mortimer, born in Cosford, England, lives and works in London, England. Mortimer makes surrealistic paintings – often large in scale – of apocalyptic landscapes and settings marked by a darker atmosphere.
The British painter starts his works by cutting and pasting found imagery from second-hand books, magazines, war photography, and more, into new settings through digital collage resulting in new and intriguing narratives.
Discover more about Justin Mortimer’s works by reading our artist spotlight and interview with the British painter.
20. Christopher Orr
Christopher Orr, born in Helensburgh, Scotland, lives and works in London, England. Orr’s paintings invite us into an entirely different world, marked by the sublime, beauty, and the inexplicable seductive character of virtuoso brushstrokes, which makes us fall in love with a painting over and over again.
Christopher Orr depicts idyll scenes such as landscapes, forests, and more. Most often small in scale, the paintings carry a certain intimacy. The romantic nature of his images is juxtaposed with the postmodern and eclectic character of the subject depicted in these idyll scenes, resulting in often subtle surrealistic analogies and readings.[20]
21. Richard Patterson
Richard Patterson was born in Leatherhead, England. He lives and works in Dallas, Texas, United States of America.
Patterson’s paintings are characterized by complex layers of paintings, prints, or sculptures which he describes as hyperabstraction. Drawing inspiration and source material from popular culture, photography, magazines, and even from film, Patterson builds collages depicting an amalgam of subjects such as porn stars, toys, animals, and himself.[21]
22. Jonathan Wateridge
Jonathan Wateridge, born in Lusaka, Zambia, lives and works in Norfolk, England. His paintings seem to be documentation or a snapshot of certain narrative events, such as people bathing or having a nap. However, these images are artificially created, so-called non-event directed by the artist.
Wateridge recreates a specific scenario in which he builds a full-scale set of the surroundings populated by performers enacting certain roles. This process takes place in the artist’s studio. The images are often banal and a depiction of everyday life.[22]
Fur further reading, we highly recommend the monographic publication Jonathan Wateridge: Enclave/Expatria.
23. Richard Wathen
Richard Wathen, born in London, England, lives and works in Suffolk, England.
Wathen’s paintings depict subjects in a pose of isolation in a monochromatic and flat space. The British artist paints these figures gazing directly at the viewer. Further, when one looks more closely, certain elements are off in the paintings, which results in a series of unanswered questions.
We highly recommend the monograph Richard Wathen: New Eyes Every Time for further reading.
24. Alison Watt
Alison Watt, born in Greenock, Scotland, lives and works in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Watt is known for her naturalistic paintings of draperies and figures. She approaches these draperies as an interplay between abstraction and figuration. The winner of the Portrait Award of the National Portrait Gallery takes a minimalistic approach to these objects, searching for new understandings of their form.[23]
25. Stuart Pearson Wright
Stuart Pearson Wright, born in Northampton, England, lives and works in Suffolk, England.
Wright is known for his paintings of figures rendered in a mannerist manner full of detail and naturalism. One of the critical topics throughout his work is identity, as if the subject plays a specific character when being depicted. Intrigued by this middle ground between the two identities, genuine and acted, Wright searches for a visualization of this in-between state.
Notes:
[1] Tate, School of London at https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/s/school-london consulted 11/12/2020.
[2] Artsy, David Hockney at https://www.artsy.net/artist/david-hockney consulted 11/12/2020.
[3] Artsy, Peter Doig at https://www.artsy.net/artist/peter-doig consulted 11/12/2020.
[4] Gagosian, Glenn Brown at https://gagosian.com/artists/glenn-brown/ consulted 11/12/2020.
[5] Artsy, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye at https://www.artsy.net/artist/lynette-yiadom-boakye consulted11/12/2020.
[6] Artnet, Chris Ofili at http://www.artnet.com/artists/chris-ofili/ consulted 12/12/2020.
[7] Artsy, Chris Ofili at https://www.artsy.net/artist/chris-ofili consulted 12/12/2020.
[8] Artsy, Jenny Saville at https://www.artsy.net/artist/jenny-saville consulted 14/12/2020.
[9] Julien Delagrange, Apologia. Kortrijk: Contemporary Art Issue, 2020.
[10] Pace, Nigel Cooke at https://www.pacegallery.com/artists/nigel-cooke/ consulted 17/12/2020.
[11] Artnet, Kaye Donachie at http://www.artnet.com/artists/kaye-donachie/ consulted 17/12/2020.
[12] Stephen Friedman Gallery, Ged Quinn at https://www.stephenfriedman.com/artists/50-ged-quinn/ consulted 17/12/2020. [13] Gallery Michael Haas, Wolfe von Lenkiewicz at https://gallerymichaelhaas.com/en/lenkiewicz-wolfe-von/ consulted 17/12/2020.
[14] GRIMM, Caroline Walker at https://gallerymichaelhaas.com/en/lenkiewicz-wolfe-von/ consulted 17/12/2020.
[15] Artsy, James White at https://www.artsy.net/artist/james-white consulted 24/12/2020.
[16] Artsy, Paul Winstanley at https://www.artsy.net/artist/paul-winstanley consulted 24/12/2020.
[17] Simon Lee, Clare Woods at https://www.simonleegallery.com/artists/clare-woods/ consulted 24/12/2020.
[18] Flowers Gallery, Ken Currie at https://www.flowersgallery.com/artists/174-ken-currie/ consulted 26/12/2020.
[19] WORKPLACE Gallery, Laura Lancaster at https://www.workplacegallery.co.uk/artists/1-laura-lancaster/ consulted 26/12/2020.
[20] Artsy, Christopher Orr at https://www.artsy.net/artist/christopher-orr consulted 26/12/2020.
[21] Artsy, Richard Patterson at https://www.artsy.net/artist/richard-patterson consulted 26/12/2020.
[22] Jonathan Wateridge, About consulted 26/12/2020.
[23] Artnet, Alison Watt at http://www.artnet.com/artists/alison-watt/ consulted 26/12/2020
Last Updated on July 5, 2024
Julien Delagrange
Julien Delagrange (b. 1994, BE) is an art historian, contemporary artist, and the director of CAI and CAI Gallery. Previously, Delagrange has worked for the Centre for Fine Arts (BOZAR) in Brussels, the Jan Vercruysse Foundation, and the Ghent University Library. His artistic practice and written art criticism are strongly intertwined, examining contemporary art in search of new perspectives in the art world.
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