Secret Garden Painting

John Appleton has been working as a portrait painter, designer and muralist for the last ten years. He currently resides in Norwich. He worked in the Old Masters department at London auction house. The direct influence of paintings by the Old Masters is evident in the themes and execution of Appleton’s works. Appleton’s surreal and unsettling images are informed by the traditions of classical portraiture, still life and ornament. His works often employ anthropomorphism and decorative distortion to highlight the theatricality and artifice of the painted image. They also play with the relationship between representation and power and give us cause to reflect upon cultural politics and hierarchies of genre in art and crafts.