Biography

About Johnny Popkess

Born in London, I spent much of my early life in various fairly remote parts of Africa, developing a fondness for beauty in its most natural state - as things really are, rather than as they are often made to appear. This early, exotic isolation fed a great desire to travel widely and experience a world of blemished beauty, culminating in a move to the heart of Paris, within a stone's throw of the Sorbonne, the Louvre and my neighbour, the Musee d'Orsay, from where a love of art proved irresistible. 2011 was my debut year as a professional artist, one that saw my first solo exhibitions. My work is now hung in an ever growing group of fine art galleries throughout the UK, France, Germany Switzerland, Bahrain and South Africa, with recent exhibitions in Antwerp and Paris and a forthcoming one in Boston, planned for early 2018. 2014/2015 were both award winning years, for which I thank all those friends, gallery owners, curators, critics and above all, collectors who support me. 

My aim is to strip away the veneer of a subject and to capture a moment, not a dramatic one, something evocative perhaps, occasionally ordinary but always honest and without the need for a narrative. Art is nothing, if it does not speak... If the power of art is to move the soul, then I am influenced by an an army of giants of whom Caravaggio, Velasquez, Titian, Caillebot, Pizarro and Freud lead.

I am a figurative artist with a passion for the human form. I portray the body as it should be seen, bold and proud, not hidden by layers of cliche. Painting exclusively with the finest oils on stretched linen canvas, my work is classically crafted in the Caravaggio tradition with a contemporary feel, depicting a moment in time. It is for the viewer to add the narrative.