John Badcock finalist Wallace Art Awards September 2016
While bearing his trademark application of heavily applied oil, John Badcock has blurred the line between sculpture and painting. Brawnier than ever, the works defy their compact size, bursting from the wall in powerful crags and chasms of unexpected colour, at once soothing, but often challenging. Blood reds meet intense teals while acid limes, muddied greys and calming ochres combine in an opus of intensity and joy. Physically weighty, the works are emotionally uplifting and hopeful.
Influenced by the musings of artist Francis Bacon, John has allowed the paint to speak for itself. The joy is in the painting and the skilled deconstruction of the human form.
“The paint, then, means to make visible that otherwise remains invisible.” Francis Bacon
Unlike Bacon’s post-war themes of savagery and grotesque allusions to brutality and death, John’s work celebrates life. There is a sense of hero worship emerging from John’s portraits. A masked man gallantly reconstructs to save the day while another evokes memories of childhood innocence and purity. The result is an unexpected peek into John’s psyche.
Subconsciously drawing on the art of the early twentieth century, John has applied his own interpretation of Cubism to the portraits. Broken shards of facial features taken from a long series of blind drawings have deliberately evolved into painted reconstructed planes, forcing the unexpected to become acceptable and normal.
“Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.” Pablo Picasso