MICHAEL BROUGHTON,

About

'The body of work here, consisting of paintings made during the last three or four years ... impresses me deeply because of its originality. True originality in art is never an aim but a reward. These heavily worked paintings ' mostly on hardboard rather than canvas ' achieve something such as I have never before seen'

Michael Broughton's paintings, forged through a process of repetition and refinement, take as their subject his everyday surroundings: the studio in Falmouth, an adjacent and dilapidated snooker room and the furniture, objects and the bric-a-brac of everyday life. They have no overt narrative or symbolic intent but simply strive to describe a place and the experience of being there.

The tonal range is narrow, colours sombre and earthy, yet luminous with a mysterious inner light. The paint is applied rapidly with an absence of strain, and because it is essential that the subject is familiar to him he draws incessantly and is continually working and reworking the subject. Successive stages of the paintings are usually scraped off and discarded so that the final state of the painting, although the culmination of many months of working and reworking, is governed by the most recent drawing, often made on the same day. Through this ritualistic process there is a balance of practise and spontaneity that seizes the moment, the essence and the existence of the subject.

Although Michael Broughton's current works maintain a wilfully narrow focus on his immediate environment, a residency in Madrid, drawing every day from the collection in the Prado (2007) and a research residency at Tate Britain (2009) indicate his faith in the need to reach into history. It also confirms Broughton's sense of himself as part of a long tradition of representational art.

The 18 page catalogue with an essay by John Berger and 13 colour plates accompanying the exhibition can also be viewed on-line .