Posted by Fabio 5 January 2018
British artist Nathan Eastwood draws inspiration from the Kitchen Sink Painters of the 1950s – his minimal, monochromatic enamel paintings aim to reflect his social realities and are allegories for our everyday existence. Eastwood depicts banal moments of day to day life in meticulous detail, allowing us to question our social conditions, and the larger implications of our social standing.
Through truthful revelations of both subject and process, the making of work in a domestic space is emphasised. Using a camera phone to capture the imagery Eastwood is able to present an unremarkable moment which places the viewer in the room while his subjects are unaware – non confronting, yet firmly placed in the present. These obsessive, intensely atmospheric and melancholic paintings operate within the conceptual framework of photo-realism, yet the works reveal loose brush marks and surface imperfections such as trapped dust and hair under a seemingly shiny surface. In this way the paintings are fictional rather than strictly photo-realistic.