![]() In 2013, the National Portrait Gallery staged a critically-acclaimed mid-career retrospective of Yeo and was attended by an astonishing 290,000 visitors. He continued to receive a steady stream of high-profile commissions, but was propelled into the public limelight in 2007 due to publicity surrounding his controversial portrait of, the then Prime Minister Tony Blair wearing a blood-red poppy. Yeo’s first major portrait commission came in 1993 from anti-apartheid campaigner Archbishop Trevor Huddleston. Truly a portraitist for the modern age, he employs a variety of media including photography and collage, while exploring contemporary themes such as social media, cosmetic surgery and pornography. Among these, notable sitters include David Cameron, the Duke of Edinburgh, Malala Yousafzai and Damien Hirst. He has painted politicians, activists, actors, writers and artists. Jonathan Yeo is a self-taught figurative artist, often credited with reinvigorating British portraiture in the twenty first century. In 2016, his largest retrospective to date was held at the Museum of National History at. ![]() More of Yeo’s work can be seen on his website.Jonathan Yeo is a self-taught figurative artist, often credited with reinvigorating British portraiture in the twenty first century. Keats said “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”… but what of chasing after elusive standards of beauty? Awesome work. Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” – that is all Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou sayst, When old age shall this generation waste, …the works are at once peaceful and grotesque. ![]() …Western culture is obsessed with normalizing the body to fit into a mold deemed more attractive or more “correct.” British artist Jonathan Yeo uses his talent for photorealistic portraiture to explore the way that people subject themselves to plastic surgery in an effort to chase eternal youth and beauty. ![]() ![]() Either way, I love these paintings oh so very much. Maybe it’s an update to the momento mori tradition in Renaissance art. Maybe he’s addressing the superficiality of beauty culture, maybe it’s meant as a more Buddhist “live in the now” statement. I love how he paints skin, and how the paintings remain unfinished, reminding us constantly that these faces and bodies are really just images, perhaps meant to remind us of the transience of our own self-images. Hi-Fructose wrote about Yeo recently (well, today) and I was absolutely floored (in a good way) by these exquisite surfaces – and poignant subject matter. Just a caveat for those of you in mixed company, many of the paintings involve waist-up nudity. Jonathan Yeo is British artist that makes, among other things, fantastic paintings dealing with plastic surgery. ![]()
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