Portrait courtesy the artist
b. 1973, UK; lives and works in Berlin
1992-95 Sheffield University
Ivan Seal is a Berlin-based British painter who has attracted critical interest for his paintings which appear to be still lives but are in fact painted from his imagination. His practice rejects the traditional approach to the genre which conventionally depicts a moment in time, opting instead for an approximation of memory almost sculpted in thick impasto paint.
Ivan Seal says that he “selects from his own memories to create portals into spaces inhabited only by painted objects. Scrutinised mental snapshots inform sets of features and narrative which are used as material to sculpt objects and architecture which inhabit ambiently illuminated non-spaces...”