ArtCo Contemporary Fine Arts

Flood is a serious painter, working tirelessly, searching endlessly for a better, stronger, purer language through which his interests and concerns can be expressed. There is little doubt either that now, in his fifties, his efforts have been rewarded, for he has an undeniable voice which says "this is me, not Velazquez or Rembrandt or Bacon, but me, Alan Flood", stamped in every brush mark. We should celebrate such endeavour in a world where vacuity and sensation are vaunted above skill and the true intellectual pursuit of painting.

On occasion his work comes as close to pure abstraction as one can get whilst still acknowledging a central figurative motif. His brush work is brave and undisguised, like the swags and flourishes of a swashbuckling swordsman cutting and slashing the surface, thrusting, weaving and simply showing off, a master-class of bravura mark making. And why not, for he is indeed a master and we should revel in his accomplishment.

A fine portrait painter whose commissions include the Russian violinish Marat Bisengaliev, the conductor Paul Daniel, Sir Ernest Hall OBE, the guitarist John Renbourn and Prue Leith.

He was artist in residence for Opera North in 1995 and was invited in 2006 by Sir Ernest Hall OBE to be the artist in residence for the Arcadia Foundation, Lanzarote.

His work is held in private and public collections throughout the world and we are delighted to be hosting an exhibition of his recent paintings and drawings.

less