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Michael Digby Bartlett

Portsmouth
I am a figurative painter who has explored themes around being an observer being observed, and more recently creating paintings by joining found images to create contemporary narrative.
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 ‘A picture is a secret about a secret, the more it tells you the less you know.’
Diane Arbus

 Mike Bartlett makes paintings of galleries, paintings of people, paintings of shows and inevitably paintings of paintings.

This doubling interaction between observer, viewer and viewed becomes an ambiguous statement on the nature of the public act of looking at pictures and the private one of making them.

Bartlett travels around attending exhibitions and recording his observations with a distinctive painting style. Bartlett paints in a loosely expressive style with richly coloured layers.

Behind the everyday ‘going to see a show’ which all artists do, Bartlett has found a conceptual impetus for using this ‘going’ as the spur on for back-in-the-studio image-making.

Photography, images from historical and contemporary art are often included in Bartlett’s paintings.

His source of imagery is often layered and added too to create immersive Utopias and Dystopias which allows him the flexibility to expand his scope to include images from childhood stories or use the ‘Zoo’ as a place of looking and viewing and  to explore cultural issues around Art and contemporary life.

‘He approaches each subject with respect and tenderness with a very strong sense of humanity. The works are not just cold observations.

Lived Experience

I am now based in a Studio attached to my home near Portsmouth . I have collaborated on art projects with Cathy Lomax, Daniel Pryde-Jarman, Arturo Cascario, Colin Merrin and many other Artists. I have to say one of my influenses was the late R B Kitaj . Also Cathy Lomax who was gracious enough to show my work at The Transition Gallery, Alan Kluckow and Rebecca  Crow .I am a keen ‘Pompey ’ supporter and enjoy nature too. Painting has always been my passion.

 

Derek

Still Runs the Waters

Blue Parrot

Spike Island

Man in a Hat at Isolation Chamber Vacation

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