Martina Schmid

Stuart Sutcliffe’s paintings and drawings evoke psychological realities that are palpable in their layered shapes and forms. My work attempts to connect the urban experience of the mind with tactile close-up encounters of textures and surfaces.

Abstraction can be seen as a quest to formulate the multi-layered facets of the visual sensual world that surrounds us.

Sutcliffe’s slashed red-ink brushstrokes resonate with me just as much as his muted thickly-coated paintings. They translate into an aggressive scream that is echoed in the empty spaces of my imaginary worlds. There is a balance between peaceful contemplation and angry sublimation, which reflects the precarious mental shifts that are required to manoeuvre the man-made built environment we live in.