Inspired by the quirks and eccentricities of England, Humphrey Ocean’s marvellous paintings and etchings delight in the ordinary. Established early in his career as a highly accomplished portrait artist, painting famous faces such as Paul McCartney, Phillip Larkin, Tony Benn and William Whitelaw, Ocean ventured in the ensuing decades towards a more expressionist aesthetic, unleashing his deadpan relish for the everyday.
Whether a painting of the quintessentially British grey and wet landscape, seen from a white van window, or a tiny etching of a cassette tape’s retro shape, Ocean presents the viewer with images seen from a loving, yet detached, viewpoint. His lambent brushwork treads an amusing line between abstraction and likeness. His compositions walk a pictorial tightrope, as if abstraction might covertly flow from sustained observation. Events or objects can feel hidden in sight.
Ocean’s appreciation of those quintessential objects marked a crucial moment in his career, which saw Ocean’s iconic etching, Black Love Chair, 2003 (featured here in ‘The British Cut’), appear on the cover of Paul McCartney’s 2007 album, Memory Almost Full, and the first edition hung on permanent loan in the Royal Academy. This simple and serendipitous image of a wing armchair embodies a play of light and dark; an obsessive observation manifesting in a shape used for quiet contemplation. Tickled by the plain and simple, Ocean’s charming celebration of the humdrum is what makes his light approach so rich.
Ocean had his first major solo exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London in 1984 and has since shown at the Tate Liverpool and the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. He was made Royal Academician in 2004, regularly curates rooms in the RA Summer Exhibition, and is a Professor of Painting at The Camberwell College of Arts. Coming full circle, Ocean has a much-anticipated forthcoming solo show at the National Portrait Gallery in London, featuring his recent ‘one hundred’ portraits.
