Edward Povey

@edwardpovey

His work explores the intimate ceremony of human experience, and cloaks Cubist perspective with Emotional Realism. His paintings hang in 30 countries.
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2,776
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116k
Following
624
“Paintings and poetry are more essential than food and water. If a physically healthy life lacks colour and meaning, it is Purgatory, whereas the arts bring warm vocabulary to what is otherwise an iron government instruction leaflet. If walls lack sensual dramas on canvas, and if the carpets are not scattered with Yeats, Owen and Heaney, darlings become pedestrians, days yawn grey, and romantic black-eyed and breathless conversations become dutiful appointments.” CONGÉDIEMENT, 2022. Edward Povey, Oil on canvas, 140 X 120.5 cm / 47.4 X 55.2 ins. Modelling courtesy of the American writer Andrea Harper. In a private collection in Portugal. Edward Povey is represented in the USA by Ray Waterhouse and Sandra Safta Waterhouse of MODERN FINE ART | Fine Art Brokers, New York (formerly Waterhouse & Dodd, New York). #artcritics #artwriters #artbooks
273 10
13 hours ago
“I talk like family to every waiter and shopgirl because I can see the children that they were, just under their skin, the kids’ playful uncertainty and sad faith in life. I respond to every comment online because I know that every one of them lies in the dead of night facing their ghosts again, and accidentally drops cups, and washes their face in a mirror, disliking what they see. When I get a message from a stranger, I can see them typing with a forefinger, making mistakes and rewriting, squinting and thinking, their hearts just a foot distant from their phone. We are all almost the same.” CAST, 2020. Edward Povey (Detail: The tin lamp / La lampe en étain). Oil on Belgian linen, 76.2 X 71.1 cm / 30 X 28 ins. Modelling courtesy of English model Ella Townsend. In a reputable private art collection in the United States. Edward Povey is represented in the USA by Ray Waterhouse and Sandra Safta Waterhouse of MODERN FINE ART | Fine Art Brokers, New York (formerly Waterhouse & Dodd, New York). #artcritics #artwriters #artbooks
335 8
17 hours ago
“He had come to his table in the back corner of Le Café Gérard, beside the door to the kitchen, time out of mind. Always writing, sometimes reading a worn novel, and distracted like a man perpetually waiting, then this morning he was different. He was more alert, but never looked towards the front windows. He had a stoic air, a sad certainty and a small rhyme of anger in his movements. The waiters noticed and gave each other long wordless looks. He left earlier than usual, and that was the very last time they saw him. Within a month he was forgotten amidst the stream of daily happenings in the café, and it was as if he had never been.” CAST, 2020. Edward Povey (Detail: The descendant / Le descendant). Oil on Belgian linen, 76.2 X 71.1 cm / 30 X 28 ins. Modelling courtesy of English model Ella Townsend. In a reputable private art collection in the United States. Edward Povey is represented in the USA by Ray Waterhouse and Sandra Safta Waterhouse of MODERN FINE ART | Fine Art Brokers, New York (formerly Waterhouse & Dodd, New York). #artcritics #artwriters #artbooks
305 13
1 day ago
“We live in an age of opinion climbing desperately in search of facts, a mountain peak that is lost from view in the clouds. Meanwhile no one remembers the complicated truths of sweet sorrow and twisted longing. Everyone is a proud expert now, and we cannot recall the romance of long experience and uncertainty, that matured agnosticism of love and lost love, dreams and lost dreams. It was a world of reverie and modest wondering.” CAST, 2020. Edward Povey (Detail: The family chair / La chaise familiale). Oil on Belgian linen, 76.2 X 71.1 cm / 30 X 28 ins. Modelling courtesy of English model Ella Townsend. In a reputable private art collection in the United States. Edward Povey is represented in the USA by Ray Waterhouse and Sandra Safta Waterhouse of MODERN FINE ART | Fine Art Brokers, New York (formerly Waterhouse & Dodd, New York). #artcritics #artwriters #artbooks
310 8
1 day ago
“’Come and sit in the window bay with me because time is short now’. The light was film noir, a fat haze of motes in that early spring diagonal light, painting all the window bars and casement perfectly over our feet and the family Persian. ‘You know that it has been wonderful. Truly, but I am more fragile than I was once.’ I took this moment to look into my lap. A wave of pressure washed up from my belly, tightening my throat, and my sight began to go. I might even need to lie down. Is this why some people just leave without saying anything? I could already hear the car door slamming outside, and knew that it must be in front of the porte coachée. It was time.” CAST, 2020. Edward Povey (Detail: The Walters family 1900-1955 / La famille Walters 1900-1955). Oil on Belgian linen, 76.2 X 71.1 cm / 30 X 28 ins. Modelling courtesy of English model Ella Townsend. In a reputable private art collection in the United States. Edward Povey is represented in the USA by Ray Waterhouse and Sandra Safta Waterhouse of MODERN FINE ART | Fine Art Brokers, New York (formerly Waterhouse & Dodd, New York). #artcritics #artwriters #artbooks
526 15
2 days ago
“This was a serious woman. She seemed to take up all the air in the room, and turned conversation serious and laden with honesty and romance. There was nothing pretty about her, yet she was entirely beautiful, and this dark enchantment spread outwards into the habits and atmosphere around her. Was it she who compelled me to explain: ‘My obsessiveness is a treadmill, endured less for what it brings to the world, and more for what it protects me from’?” CAST, 2020. Edward Povey. Oil on Belgian linen, 76.2 X 71.1 cm / 30 X 28 ins. Modelling courtesy of English model Ella Townsend. In a reputable private art collection in the United States. Edward Povey is represented in the USA by Ray Waterhouse and Sandra Safta Waterhouse of MODERN FINE ART | Fine Art Brokers, New York (formerly Waterhouse & Dodd, New York). #artcritics #artwriters #artbooks
513 16
2 days ago
“Naturally artists like the collector who buys their paintings. But they love the collector who visits the painting on sleepless nights, who sees the painting change as the day wears down, and its figures lean deeper, weeping into the painted river, spooning their memories and sliding their hands around the waist of their collector, slipping into the middle of her back and pressing her life close. Windows are the outside world. Paintings are the inside world. Artists and collectors are the pilgrims.” CAST, 2020 (In process / En cours). Edward Povey. Oil on Belgian linen, 76.2 X 71.1 cm / 30 X 28 ins. Modelling courtesy of English model Ella Townsend. The painting is in a reputable private collection in the United States. Edward Povey is represented in the USA by Ray Waterhouse and Sandra Safta Waterhouse of MODERN FINE ART | Fine Art Brokers, New York (formerly Waterhouse & Dodd, New York). #artcritics #artwriters #artbooks
482 21
3 days ago
“My heart goes out to him, partly owing to his limitations. Even when he wore his best jacket and combed his disloyal moustache, he was small. I mean this in terms of his expectations of life, and his narrow and amused perspective on it. We have to grant him that because he is the courageous kind of man that will apologise on his deathbed, and nothing is more heartrending than that. Like standing in the last doorway nodding, with his smile disintegrating into tears.” BÉGUINAGE, 2024 (Detail: The Béguine / La Béguine). Edward Povey, Oil on linen, 170 X 170 cm / 67 X 67 inches. Modelling courtesy of American writer Andrea Harper and her sister Heidi Harper. _________________________________ Edward Povey is represented in the USA by Ray Waterhouse and Sandra Safta Waterhouse of MODERN FINE ART | Fine Art Brokers, New York (formerly Waterhouse & Dodd, New York). #artcritics #artwriters #artbooks
313 9
3 days ago
“Where are the girls now? Have they met already, and do they sit somewhere over tea pausing and reflecting? Is their world at right angles to ours, a dream of gravity and unfolding time? Are they here but inaudible, smiling at our unanswerable loss?” BÉGUINAGE, 2024 (Detail: The sister / La soeur). Edward Povey, Oil on linen, 170 X 170 cm / 67 X 67 inches. Modelling courtesy of American writer Andrea Harper and her sister Heidi Harper. _________________________________ Edward Povey is represented in the USA by Ray Waterhouse and Sandra Safta Waterhouse of MODERN FINE ART | Fine Art Brokers, New York (formerly Waterhouse & Dodd, New York). #artcritics #artwriters #artbooks
553 11
4 days ago
“Two men on a makeshift raft riding mountainous seas in the Pacific night, soaked and arguing as they tie themselves down. Angry lovers wringing their hands in the dying light of summer afternoon along the avenue, three floors up above a cellist, the faint laughter of children rolling home, and the first blackbird echoing in the adjoining terrace. The staggering breath of a civil servant, desperately gripping his bathroom sink, his sobs contained and virtually soundless behind the latched plywood door.” BÉGUINAGE, 2024 (Detail: The hovetcleet / Le hovetcleeté). Edward Povey, Oil on linen, 170 X 170 cm / 67 X 67 inches. Modelling courtesy of American writer Andrea Harper and her sister Heidi Harper. _________________________________ Edward Povey is represented in the USA by Ray Waterhouse and Sandra Safta Waterhouse of MODERN FINE ART | Fine Art Brokers, New York (formerly Waterhouse & Dodd, New York). #artcritics #artwriters #artbooks
585 17
4 days ago
“Quickly now, bring the travoys. A little bird, a starling perhaps, came into my chambre à coucher, and flew around the hanging lamp, so I woke to the sound of wings. I had been dreaming. The bombs were coming closer and I could hear the chatter of anti-aircraft fire from Mount Gozo. We should leave now. I never was courageous, and bombing disrupted even the selfishness that kept me at my easel. I was dousing the lamps and gathering our bathroom bags when I heard wings.” BÉGUINAGE, 2024 (Detail: The leaning compatriot / Le compatriote penché). Edward Povey, Oil on linen, 170 X 170 cm / 67 X 67 inches. Modelling courtesy of American writer Andrea Harper and her sister Heidi Harper. _____________________________________________ Edward Povey is represented in the USA by Ray Waterhouse and Sandra Safta Waterhouse of MODERN FINE ART | Fine Art Brokers, New York (formerly Waterhouse & Dodd, New York). #artcritics #artwriters #artbooks
341 5
5 days ago
“Learning begins rapaciously at birth or before. Unless the child has ownership of themselves throughout their childhood, a cocoon of acceptance, they can never learn. Later they can imitate the vocabulary but not the meaning. The technicalities but not the beating heart of culture. That is the wisdom of millstones.” BÉGUINAGE, 2024 (Detail: The middle of mortality / Le milieu de la mortalité). Edward Povey, Oil on linen, 170 X 170 cm / 67 X 67 inches. Modelling courtesy of American writer Andrea Harper and her sister Heidi Harper. __________________________________________ Edward Povey is represented in the USA by Ray Waterhouse and Sandra Safta Waterhouse of MODERN FINE ART | Fine Art Brokers, New York (formerly Waterhouse & Dodd, New York). #artcritics #artwriters #artbooks
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5 days ago