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ETHAN FOX

Biography

Ethan Fox (b.1983) is self taught and took up painting in 2017, having been informed and excited by the beauty he found in his daily walks. He prefers to work from life in oil and acrylic, especially outdoors, responding intuitively to capture lively subtleties often lost in a photograph. He is entranced by the abstract experience of seeing where everything feels new yet familiar, everything is awaiting discovery, and holds a truth that comes before words. He feels colour is a direct route to this truth, and is in relentless pursuit of articulating in paint what we know and share, but couldn’t say. In this way, paintings are much like poems, dreams, and memories. In painting Ethan endeavours to evoke surprise, share his excitement about light, and to recall those quiet moments when we are most ourselves.

Influences include Fairfield Porter, George Bellows, Degas and Walter Sickert, and contemporaries Richard Pikesley, James Bland, and Mark Daniel Nelson. He loves the illustration of Richard Cunningham and Colin Moore. Ethan is also an accomplished printmaker, having taught himself linocut in 2022. When not painting he is an avid weightlifter and finds strength training a grounding counterpart to the romance and emotional intensity of making art.

He lives and works in the North East and exhibited for the first time at the NEAC annual show this year.