Turn of the Century Painting

Ben Dhaliwal’s artwork belongs to a world of atmosphere, narrative and above all nostalgia, perhaps for something never experienced. His landscapes and interiors are populated by archetypal figures. Magicians, Clowns, Kings, Queens, Angels, Performing Animals and characters from and inspired by his love of baroque opera. All of them have in common that they are figures out of place in the modern, materialist world. His performers stand as practitioners of either lost, pointless or superseded skills; much like any painter, especially one occupied with representational or figurative subject matter. The situations in which they are depicted are often either prior to or after an event to which the viewer has not been privileged and must therefore provide interpretation and meaning. Clues and symbols abound in the plethora of seemingly irrelevant objects which lie discarded in the corners and shadows of his theatrical spaces. His paintings are also rich in art historical references contrasted by deliberate anachronisms of textile, costume detail and furnishing. These are there to be enjoyed by those who care to take the time but are non-essential and subservient to the overall effect. The kitsch and sentimental content in his work is neither cool nor ironic but stems from a real desire to transcend and escape the sometimes oppressive hectic of the immediate. As a child of mixed-race parentage growing up in the grim, industrial north of 1970’s England, he claimed this right to non-participation relatively early, abandoning a practical study of art for the more esoteric but academically rigorous and critical theory-steeped, art history. Emerging years later, his head spinning with visual and cultural references, he embarked on a career as a museum curator. However, dissatisfied with the dreary politics and repetitive administration and having met his wife to be, he left England for Austria, initially planning to begin doctoral research. However, during this time, his desire to practice was re-kindled. After a brief and only partially successful attempt to try and establish a career as a children’s book illustrator, he began to practice the meticulous, studied and utterly un-spontaneous type of oil painting, based on the so called ‘Flemish Technique’ that he had always admired. Lacking conviction that his work had either aesthetic merit or commercial possibility, he did not exhibit until 2013.