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My work is a visual diary, an attempt to explain in painting what I experience and how I feel about it when experiencing it. A few profound experiences dictate my whole life, both as a person and as an artist. These essentially revolve around holidays and travelling, relationships, punk rock and Stuckism. Sometimes the past and the present get mixed up and I often try to reconcile these two things.
Punk has been a massive influence on me, and I still play in the punk band Penetration as well as the bands Happy Refugees and Nancy Bone. Stuckism and the ideas that it discusses have had a profound effect on me both in terms of my work and also as a human being. I found in it a philosophy that resonated with me, and was drawn to the work of others in the movement, particularly Charles Thomson, Philip Absolon, Joe Machine and Wolf Howard.
I was drawn to the language of Stuckism, where I found parallels with punk attitude and approach, which I first experienced in the original punk movement in 1977. The Stuckists manifesto made sense to me: I found it radical in approach. I appreciated the combination of humour and a deep spiritual message.
The fight I have with my work is against irony and superficiality, and sometimes I win this fight and sometimes I lose. However, I believe in sentimentality and I am with Peter Blake on this, who believes there is not enough sentimentality in contemporary art.
I put the compositions together in Photoshop as changes can be made very quickly, so as not to waste time and energy once working on canvas. I then usually, but not always, project the composition onto canvas and trace the main outlines. Often changes are still made at this stage, as screen and canvas differ greatly when I consider how an idea looks and feels. I very rarely abandon a painting, as it is better to finish and fail than to give up. Interestingly, often a painting I have felt at the time to be a failure will end up being one of my favourites at a later date.
Raw material for the the imagery in my paintings comes from a variety of sources including my own photography, drawings and imagination, but often combined with found imagery that I collect and store away if I feel an affinity with it. This found imagery is mostly from the 50s, 60s and 70s. I often mix and match images from different times and places to try to make sense of my own present.
I often reference other painters in my work. This is mainly because my own work documents what happens to me and reflects experiences that I am having at the time. This includes discovering the work of other artists, but my referencing is also often a homage. Other times these elements will be a useful reference point within my own painting, to explain where I am coming from.
About Dr. Paul Harvey
Personal website
My work is a visual diary, an attempt to explain in painting what I experience and how I feel about it when experiencing it. A few profound experiences dictate my whole life, both as a person and as an artist. These essentially revolve around holidays and travelling, relationships, punk rock and Stuckism. Sometimes the past and the present get mixed up and I often try to reconcile these two things.
Punk has been a massive influence on me, and I still play in the punk band Penetration as well as the bands Happy Refugees and Nancy Bone. Stuckism and the ideas that it discusses have had a profound effect on me both in terms of my work and also as a human being. I found in it a philosophy that resonated with me, and was drawn to the work of others in the movement, particularly Charles Thomson, Philip Absolon, Joe Machine and Wolf Howard.
I was drawn to the language of Stuckism, where I found parallels with punk attitude and approach, which I first experienced in the original punk movement in 1977. The Stuckists manifesto made sense to me: I found it radical in approach. I appreciated the combination of humour and a deep spiritual message.
The fight I have with my work is against irony and superficiality, and sometimes I win this fight and sometimes I lose. However, I believe in sentimentality and I am with Peter Blake on this, who believes there is not enough sentimentality in contemporary art.
I put the compositions together in Photoshop as changes can be made very quickly, so as not to waste time and energy once working on canvas. I then usually, but not always, project the composition onto canvas and trace the main outlines. Often changes are still made at this stage, as screen and canvas differ greatly when I consider how an idea looks and feels. I very rarely abandon a painting, as it is better to finish and fail than to give up. Interestingly, often a painting I have felt at the time to be a failure will end up being one of my favourites at a later date.
Raw material for the the imagery in my paintings comes from a variety of sources including my own photography, drawings and imagination, but often combined with found imagery that I collect and store away if I feel an affinity with it. This found imagery is mostly from the 50s, 60s and 70s. I often mix and match images from different times and places to try to make sense of my own present.
I often reference other painters in my work. This is mainly because my own work documents what happens to me and reflects experiences that I am having at the time. This includes discovering the work of other artists, but my referencing is also often a homage. Other times these elements will be a useful reference point within my own painting, to explain where I am coming from.
About Dr. Paul Harvey
Personal website
