The Liverpool Nude

  The Art of Lucian Freud, a personal view by Paul Gatenby I’ll start with an opinion expressed as if it were a fact: ‘All great art is humane’ No doubt we could find exceptions, but I believe that on the whole, this is true.   The Sistine Chapel, for example, may depict a super-human world but if we look at the exchange of glances between the newly created Adam and the yet to be created Eve still under God’s protective arm, we see the beginnings of an all too human relationship.   Or the self-portraits of Rembrandt; the late paintings are often described as portraits of the artist facing death; I prefer to think of them as the artist facing life.   He looks himself in the eye, and looks into his soul; and ours too.   Van Gogh’s potato eaters may not have much but at least they’re sharing it.   There are admirable qualities in Freud’s work, not least the sheer determination to stick with figuration for so long, especially during times when many would have dismissed it as archai

I can never hang a painting on the wall without a slight feeling of nervousness. Is it the right place? Is it level? Is it going to fall down? Is the frame right? And so on. Consequently, hanging my first ever solo exhibition (yes, at my age!) this state of agitation was somewhat exacerbated as you might imagine. Still, it was nice to be back in  92 Degrees   and it was gratifying to have the first show after lockdown (I know we’re not quite in the clear yet). Mine is the fourth exhibition at 92 from LIAS (Liverpool Nude twice and Art from the Start once) and this time they have a new method for hanging the pictures which threw us completely at first but we did eventually get the hang of it. Above: Toc getting to grips with 92's new hanging system. I also had to do some curating on the day. I’d taken 37 paintings and we had space for around 20 so as the show was called ‘People and Places, I decided to balance the two themes, 10 people; 10 places. There’s a distinct Live

  Closing The Circle with Life Drawing Male Model, Billy (Oil Paint,1990) I think I used to be an artist of some sort. It seems many lifetimes before lockdown but it began in 1989 when I swapped the school tie of the all-boys sixth form uniform for a Clash T-shirt and started my Foundation Art and Design at Liverpool. I completely fell in love with it and it was a real sense of home coming to be in arts education. Suddenly my creative voice counted and I could begin to tell the story of my own life in images. I loved Art Foundation and although it was a yearlong course somehow, (back in the days of education funding and opportunity) I managed to hang on and stay for three years. During that time, the rigor of Life Drawing was a staple of the weekly structure. Often we would have a full day pose, or at least two afternoons working from either the female or male model. We learned the academic underpinning of all forms of visual practice which came from our own understanding of the shapes

 Paul Gatenby,  This is the first life drawing I ever did.  You can just make out the date of 9 October 1988, I remember doing it quite clearly and I remember struggling with the relationship of head, neck and shoulders.  I kept drawing the figure too upright and didn't appreciate at the time how the human head comes forward from the body.  Interesting to see the horizontal lines drawn in where I was measuring 'how many heads' in the upright figure.  I did read lots of 'How to Draw the Figure' books back then. This one was a few weeks later.  I was really pleased with it - it's quite a good resemblance and the hands aren't bad either.  And yes we really did balance electric heaters on upturned wooden stools.  I'm won't mention any of the models names here for the sake of their privacy but many Liverpool artists and students will recognise this lady.  She worked at the Community College where I did my foundation when these drawings were done. I went o

 Introducing 'The Liverpool Nude' blog; a celebration of the art of the human body.  We run life drawing classes, performances and exhibitions acknowledging the beauty and variety of the human form.