For Edward Povey, every painting is made to solve a problem and to open new areas of possibility. Amplexum is a perfect example, showing the devolution from painted passages to drawn passages, dividing raggedly in the lower right corner, but ending on the horizons of forms on the right shoulder and the hat, allowing Povey the opportunity to make judgements about these transitions for upcoming paintings.

The Jewish calendar in the top centre echoes experiences in Berlin and Israel, where, as a young artist, he was inspired by the theatrical experience of the Independence Day festivities in Tel Aviv. The carefully depicted bone-handled knife (top right) was brought by Povey‘s father from overseas to his mother shortly after World War II, raising both sweet and acidic memories. Literally everything in Povey’s paintings is a confidence provided to the viewer by his own life.

In this work Povey also more extremely experiments with the appearance of viscera in the hand and arms of the figure, suggesting a vulnerable sensitivity. The intensity of the figure can be read in very different ways, and Povey insists that human beings carry all emotions simultaneously, thus, the figure may be orgasmic, may be filled with longing, or possibly lost in remorse.

As a child Edward was taken by his father to grand hotels in London, working in their kitchens overnight, fitting new cooking ranges. Here he saw stacked crockery in the cloying and steamy atmosphere of kitchens far below ground. And in the early hours, he would walk alone through their darkened ballrooms where he faced an intense experience of vulnerability. He regarded this painting as one of his more important successes of 2020.

Edward Povey was born in 1951 in London, England, growing up as an only child, painting obsessively and writing prose and music. He studied drawing at Eastbourne College for Art and Design, and then psychology and painting at The University of Wales. He became known as a mural painter in his twenties and was followed by the BBC through the making of 25 murals up to six stories in height, a period that he later came to regard as his apprenticeship.

He moved his studio to the Caribbean island of Grenada to concentrate on deepening his canvas painting for seven years, during which time, his works began finding their way into private collections in the United States. He studied colour and composition with established artists such as the Danish architectural abstractionist Paul Klose, the American colourist Malcolm T. Liepke, and the Belgian art dealer Jan de Maere. By 1991, he was showing in John Whitney Payson’s New York gallery beside 20th Century American masters, and other galleries spanning seven countries over the coming three decades.

In 1991 The University of Wales commissioned Edward Povey to create a major 20 x 40 foot painting for a chamber concert hall in Wales, for which he designed a dense narrative work comprising seven panels framed by trompe-l'œil stonework.

By the year 2000, Povey’s work was acquired by prominent institutions including The National Museum of Wales; MOMA Wales; the National Library of Wales; the Glynn Vivien Art Museum; the Anglesey Museum Art Collection and numerous corporate art collections, and in 2018 The British Library documented his career for the British nation.

Povey was unusually sensitive and empathic child; prone to fainting. Personal experiences steeped in adventure - and at times tumultuous, he has had three marriages through two wars, in Israel and in the Caribbean; thus, it is no coincidence that he is preoccupied with the human experience. We follow a clear arc through his paintings, from perspectives on society in his 1970s’ murals, through family psychology and symbolism in his works of the 1990s, then culminating with insights into individual human vulnerability and mortality in his current paintings.

He lives and works in Devon, England, and still devotes up to a hundred hours a week to his work.