Somewhere along the border of figurative and abstract, Jamie Gallagher's visceral, contorted portraits reveal states of the human psyche, manifested in a refined use of colour and texture. Gallagher brings his comprehensive knowledge of colour theory and composition, developed in his twenty-year career as an artistic director, to his paintings, allowing him to enact a push and pull between figurative and expressionist forms which reflects the root of his practice: a pursuit of experimentation and introspection.
Born in Edinburgh, Gallagher slowly made his way south to study design at University of the West of England in Bristol, before settling in Hereforshire. He now splits his time between his studio in rural Herefordshire, and Bath, where he runs a creative agency. His career in creative direction led him to explore a range of media, from photography and virtual reality to typography and branding. However, he didn't begin painting until around 2015, a time in which the loss of a close friend, a painter, inspired him to turn to the medium as a means of processing grief and the general ebbs and flows occurring in his life. For Gallagher, painting became therapy: the materiality and process a welcome vehicle for simultaneously exploring the medium and his mind.
Despite no formal fine arts training, Gallagher's style is nuanced and concrete, with a Bacon-esque atmosphere. In addition to Francis Bacon (1909-1992), Gallagher turns to other giants, such as Frank Auerbach (b. 1931) and Maggi Hambling (b. 1941), and contemporaries such as Jenna Gribbon (b. 1978), for inspiration. Gallagher's process is intuitive, improvisational, and reactive. He doesn't work from reference; rather, he approaches his portraits with a figurative intent. Beginning with instinctive abstract marks that indicate human form, he pushes abstract expressionism toward figuration. He nurtures his muscle memory and familiarity with the human body through live model sessions and is currently exploring the use of AI-generated figures as inspiration, finding that the contorted and uncanny renderings bring a different body of language to his work. It is only after completion, when his paintings are all lined up against each other in the studio, that he uncovers what they are "really about." Naming his works-the final stage-is an intrinsic part of his process. While his titles may not hold significance for everyone, for Gallagher, they are personal signposts that make apparent what he was thinking about in their making.
Gallagher's practice, which started in an old mill-turned-studio, blossomed from a private pursuit to sharing his art with the public when he was approached to hold a solo exhibition, Post Normality Reality Disorder, in 2018. Gallagher has since shown in multiple galleries and art fairs across the UK, and his work is held in private collections world-wide. His paintings and monotypes remain deeply personal explorations of the human condition, and more specifically, his own internal condition, with their engaging use of colour and composition an invitation to reflect on our own state of being.