Artist analysis - Guy Denning

Guy Denning is an artist who frequently uses powerful brushstrokes with oils and the scratching of paint to create effective figurative paintings. He was self-taught and always interested by art, despite being refused entry for several art colleges. The refusal he got from art college is one of the reasons he is who he is today in terms of art style, as he had to teach himself rather than learn from others and maybe get told how to do certain things. He was inspired by Franz Kline and his powerful brushstrokes in his abstract drawings as well as Kathe Kollwitz, but now paints figurative portraiture to convey power emotions and meaning which he says changes throughout the process of creating his work, but is mainly focused on politics, society and war. War became a huge meaning to his work when he went to France with his family and they took him to the war cemetery in Verdun. War is affiliated with loss, which is the meaning I wish to convey in my works.

One of his works, titled ‘El Dopa’ is a close-up portrait of a woman, which he had used oil paint on canvas to make this piece. The portrait itself is very heavily coloured in black around the nose, eyes and face, which takes away a few details in most of the face, for example the nostrils, the pupils and the majority of her lips. He also uses Shades of brown and white, as if he had tea-stained the canvas beforehand. There are few white highlights, to perhaps give less contrast so we focus on the whole piece instead of one area. The background looks like a map, with lines protruding anywhere to give a ‘broken’ vibe to the woman’s face, as they resemble cracks on her face. The woman herself looks emotionless, but with the dark colours and lack of contrast it is assumed the woman’s emotions and thoughts from the inside has been shown from the colour scheme, resembling unhappy feelings, with the ‘cracks’ being a metaphor for her mind, as her mind and emotions are broken, which really puts a deeper meaning into the artwork.  With the colour scheme, it bears the thought that the artwork has a much more serious meaning. The word ‘dopa’ in the title is a compound that is used to treat Parkinson’s disease, which could be related to the serious nature of this painting, where the woman is broken due to someone she lost. The colour black also has a negative connotation, like fear and death, which also links into the theme of loss in this piece. The brown could be a contrast to the meaning of the piece as it symbolises family and health.

Guy Denning frequently uses canvas from sizes as small as 30cm to as big as 100cm, usually creating a 3D effect by scratching the paint on the canvas itself, creating different layers. Guy Denning’s use of line is very controlled in his works, often not being precise, but in fact very free and chaotic. His mark-making are also usually very sharp and jagged, as it is like they have been scratched. They also look like they have been drawn very quick. His tone is also quite simple but varied, making most of his works heavily contrast with the black areas compared to the lack of white highlights, it creates a more realistic and 3D effect with the tone. His colours are primarily the primary colour of black and white and different variations of the tertiary colour brown to create a dark and meaningful piece, avoiding bright colours to convey a more serious meaning, however he has occasionally used bright primary colours such as red as a form of contrast. Because most of his work is based around war, it is fitting that he uses colours that symbolises negative feelings rather than bright colours which are usually affiliated with happy feelings. However, the red could be seen as negative in terms of war, as it could symbolise blood. He uses a rough texture in his work which is accomplished by his scratching of the oil paint. Oil paint itself is a very smooth texture, which contrasts with the scratched areas and the canvas, which are both quite rough textures to work with.

Guy Denning usually works into his piece by first creating a background of simply brown shades, then proceeds to draw whatever he wants. His work is very spontaneous, where the meaning often changes in his work and he has no clear plan on what the finished product will be. Most of his works usually end up with a meaning of seriousness in terms of violence, war, loss and politics, which he finds important to him due to him visiting the war cemetery back when he was child. This is usually conveyed using plain colours with most negative connotations, as well as the portraits being controlled and their subjects being emotionless.

 I find Guy Denning very inspiring by the way he uses colours and lines to convey the meaning he does, as a meaning of loss is one of the deeper interpretations I want to get out of my work. His use of lines is what inspires me the most, as the lines giving the impression of ‘broken’ is another meaning I find inspiring as it is very loose and free. He relates to my work due to the meanings he portrays and the use of lines I wish to incorporate into my drawings due to them being effective.