Duncan Wood, Cloud I
“I have a great deal to be indebted to Lucian Freud for, since he painted all my close family, but in addition, it was he who introduced me to Duncan Wood’s work. This was really a great favour. Duncan’s paintings of trees are unusual and when looking at them one is permeated by a sense of calm". - Andrew Devonshire, Chatsworth
Born in London in 1960, Duncan Wood first studied at Gloucestershire College of Art, Sheffield Hallam University and University College London, before undertaking a Master’s in Fine Art at The City and Guilds of London Art School. He was a faculty member and senior tutor at The Prince’s Drawing School, London (2008-2014), and subsequently became Associate Lecturer of Fine Art at The Sheffield Institute of Arts, Sheffield Hallam University (2011-16). He works from Derbyshire and London.
Over the last two decades Wood has built-up a distinguished national and international reputation as a subtle colourist of landscape, the figure and still life. He uses elements of figuration and abstraction together, to pay a particular homage to Nature. His work has been recognised and championed by Lucian Freud, Andrew Devonshire and the late William Louis-Dreyfus amongst many others.
In explanation of his ethos, the artist quotes a section from John Berger’s essay, ‘Steps Towards A Small Theory of The Visible’ (1996), in which Berger wrote … ‘The modern illusion concerning painting (which post-modernism has done nothing to correct), is that the artist is a creator. Rather, he is a receiver. What seems like creation is the act of giving form to what he has received.’
‘[I see myself] as part of a long lineage of thinkers, writers, artists, and scientists, that place ‘Nature’ as their first teacher, rather than ‘Humankind’, as we come from Nature and not the other way round … as ingenious as we often are.’ – Duncan Wood