Tony Bevan

The painter Tony Bevan born in Bradford, in 1951, attended Goldsmith’s School of Art and then the Slade School of Fine Art. Throughout his career, has focused primarily on two motifs: architectural constructs, including his Rafters and Corridor paintings, and the human head. In the case of his architectural works, Bevan is often inspired by the dilapidated buildings surrounding his studio in South London. His Head paintings represent a more personal and interior space – they are psychologically charged canvases. In the 1990s, the artist repeatedly returned to the motif of the human head. In these unconventional “self-portraits,” it is clear that Bevan is not interested in glamorising or even accurately documenting his features. Indeed, while always maintaining legibility, he pushes the extremes of deformation and simplification with his geometric reductions of the human head. In his most recent series of Heads, Bevan has almost completely abandoned referential human features in favour of abstract linear renderings. In this new work, the head becomes an architectural space of its own and is directly linked to his Corridor and Rafter images. These commanding canvases, combine his two most enduring motifs in a powerful new testimonial. Bevan takes part of a new generation of British figurative painters. The exhibition organised by the IVAM will be the first solo show by this artist in an Spanish public institution.