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Bryan Ingham was an English painter, etcher, sculptor, and collage artist who practiced in multiple mediums and was inspired by the Cubist styles of Braque, Gris and Picasso. His aesthetic carries the Cubist play of perspective to new heights, experimenting with form and substance to create striking, mixed media prints. ‘Mediterranean Head I’ instantly recalls a Picasso portrait the famous ‘Weeping Woman’, perhaps, or one of ‘Les Demoiselles D’Avignon’. Yet Ingham’s work removes the brutality of a Picasso, revelling in a naivety and simplicity which is easier on the eye, with more elegant appeal. Ingham layers blocks of sketchy colour, using a palette of earthy greens and mossy browns against bold red and deep violet. Much of the image remains monochrome, for graphic effect, the face itself formed out of carefully ruled pencil lines. If there is something grotesque in Picasso’s warped perspectival experiments, Ingham has replaced this with a mathematical, stripped back approach, creating a final result that is pleasing and harmonious.
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