My paintings present a twilit, hallucinatory world haunted by the presence of the human figure. Light falls on flesh. Bodies coalesce with their surroundings.

Painting the urban twilight allows me to create a liminal space in which erotic intimacy and transgression can occur, and therianthropic and chimerical beings can emerge.

Some of my works are painted on newspaper. I seek to exploit the way the newsprint interrupts the painted surface with a kind of soft violence.

Ultimately, my paintings explore both the desire and the disquietude of the human experience through my own experience as a queer person living in the city and by the sea.

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BIOGRAPHY 

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James Dearlove (born 1970) holds an MA in Fine Art from The Slade School of Art, and has also attended the Turps Banana Art School. He currently lives and works in Cornwall, having transitioned to painting following a successful career in Television production. In 2021 Dearlove was awarded the Ingram Prize; one of the UK’s leading prizes for emerging contemporary artists. In 2023 Dearlove was chosen for the prestigious Bloomberg New Contemporaries. His artwork has also been featured in ArtMaze Magazine, MIRRORR, FAD, i-D and HERO Magazine, amongst other publications. Dearlove has exhibited extensively in the UK since he began painting. His work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions at galleries that include Arch Gallery, Rye Art Gallery, Gallery 46, Unit 1 Gallery, Studio 1.1, BWG Gallery, Rouge Gallery and the Plough Arts Centre. His work has also been exhibited in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (2019), been selected for the ING Discerning Eye exhibition at Mall Galleries (2021), was exhibited at Saatchi Gallery (2022) as part of the Ingram Collection’s presentation of modern and contemporary art at the British Art Fair, and presented a solo booth at London Art Fair with BWG Gallery (2024). In 2021 Dearlove help his first solo exhibition The Garden Room at Nine Elms Gallery, and held his second, large-scale solo exhibition on Soho Square with BWG Gallery (2023).