When I went onto artreview.com, my eyes were immediately drawn to a painting that was obviously reminiscent of the famous Piccaso painting Facing Death. Paul Housley was the painter of that piece and in the video blog on the website, painter and Art Review columnist Nigel Cooke interviewed Mr. Housley on his latest exhibition, A Maid for Paint, which was displayed at the Poppy Sebire in London. Housley's Style is mostly based on Post-Impressionist Master Painters such as Pablo Picasso, Diego Velasquez and Chaim Soutine. Mr. Housely explained his style in further details, "On one level All the references I make can be seen as a kind of homage. I only use artist's that I genuinely love and on a basic level I am just trying to learn from and that. Using that kind of self portrait was the most basic template to do that." He discusses later in the video how he combines several different Post- Impressionist styles together at one time and usually will think of two or three specific paintings while creating his own painting and then fits his own portrait in between the lines of the portraits of the other paintings.
This technique is clearly visible in Housley's Self Portrait. Furthermore, through his technique he creates a new meaning in his artwork and his paintings symbolize a rebirth of the older masters tecquniques through the hybrid style he creates in his own artwork. For The Portrait, Housley borrows a cubist style that seems more relative to One of Picasso's earlier self portraits inspired by African masks. Furthermore, he uses a recycled blue color that is extremely close to the blue color Picasso used to create his self portrait, Facing Death. However, unlike Picasso, Mr. Housley added a sharply contrasting rust color over top the blue to juxstapose the dead flatness that comes from the blue and gives the painting a new sense of vibrance and dimension to it.
I find Housley's work to be extremely visually interesting, the composition in his paintings are refreshingly original, even though his technique is usually borrowed and can be very easy associated with another artists work. I also appreciate Housley's versatility in utilizing and emulating very complex painting styles and how He combines those different styles in order to create something that is entirely different. Furthermore, I admire that he always strives to be visually unexpected and to always creates something new from what is recycled from the old. To see Paul Housleys interview go here: http://www.artreview.com/video/paul-housley-nigel-cooke
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