Top 7 Quotes & Sayings by Paul Emsley

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a British artist Paul Emsley.
Last updated on November 25, 2024.
Paul Emsley

Paul Emsley is a British artist who worked in South Africa until 1996 and is now resident in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, England. He is a former lecturer at the Stellenbosch University and the 2007 winner of the BP Portrait Award for portrait painting. His work can be found in most public collections in South Africa, The National Portrait Gallery London and The British Museum. He is known for his large detailed images of people, animals and flowers. There was a major retrospective of his work in 2012 at the Sasol Art Gallery in Stellenbosch. He is represented in the UK by the Redfern Gallery and in South Africa by Everard Read. Emsley's portrait of the Duchess of Cambridge is on permanent display at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Other notable portraits include Nelson Mandela, Sir V. S. Naipaul, Michael Simpson and William Kentridge.

I don't have lots of things in the background. I do like large faces, I find them strong and contemporary.
I'm interested in the landscape of the face, the way in which light and shadow fall across the forms. That's really my subject matter.
I'm always worried about the sitters - are they cold, are they hot, are they comfortable? — © Paul Emsley
I'm always worried about the sitters - are they cold, are they hot, are they comfortable?
Photography today is so accurate and so good that it's really so much easier just to take photographs and work from them.
As an artist, you do understand you're never going to please everybody.
I'm developed as an artist to accept the fact there are different points of view, but I believe in what I do and I have to stay with that.
I have painted and drawn bulls for some time because of their density and all the symbolism they carry.
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