About
See below to learn more about the artist and his art.
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Artist Statement
I am primarily a painter producing figurative realism works that are strongly narrative based. Focussing on works exploring physicality and mentality, their imperfections, damages, fragilities of injury and age, and how these are revealed in the flesh - making us who and what we are.
Exploring how pain, injury trauma of the body and mind can be depicted through painting. I do this through the use of collocations -a combination of paintings; such as a figure with injuries and an associated image such as a damaged object.
With this collocation of paintings, I seek to develop a new narrative, extending the initial narrative and developing new ones as I seek to evoke awareness and empathy in the viewer. I also seek to allow the viewer to continue the narrative leaving the paintings hanging on a point in time that can continue.
Our bodies and minds are like a diary or map of our life, revealing the stresses, strains, injuries, age and imperfections within its surface and underlying core. I want to explore how paint can be used as a physical representation of a body’s flesh and mind, reflecting on a life’s experiences.
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Biographical Statement
Born in 1960 in Dublin, Ireland where I was brought up. My interest in art and painting came from my mother a keen amateur artist. Through my teenage years we attended life drawing classes in the evening including at Trinity College, Dublin University. My school exams, Leaving Certificate produced an A in Higher lever Art, as well as good marks in Physics and Maths. By the end of my teenage years, I was left with a choice to develop a career in engineering or art and I choose engineering. I did not abandon painting and still continued to doodle and dabble.
Having turned to engineering for a career I spent a number of years in the British Merchant Navy as a Marine Engineer, studying for this in Glasgow and South Shields before travelling the world. Leaving the shipboard life, I turned to offshore oil and gas rigs spending a number of years in Zaire as it was called then, before it changed to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), West Africa.
This job in Africa was on a schedule of a few weeks on duty and a few weeks off. During the approx. 4 weeks off duty, I would travel home to Dublin often staying with in London. Whilst passing through London, I met a girl, we married and had three boys. They are now grown in wonderful men and have so far provided us with two grandsons.
Leaving Africa, I started a job based in London as an engineer with Sea Containers (SeaCo and later called GESeaCo) staying there for more than two decades. By now my engineering had evolved from marine and off shore oil production to refrigeration. After SeaCo I had a success of management jobs in refrigeration engineering.
Through this success of jobs over the decades I still did drawing and painting never quite finding the time to do as much of it as I would like. This all changed in late 2008 when I had an out-patient procedure on a niggly back that left me with the superbug, MRSA in my spine and a serious illness. Spending many months laid up and off work firstly trying to beat the bug and then recovering from major back surgery I turned to art determined to do more.
Early inspiration came for library books by Charles Tunnicliffe on birds. I then began painting classes at Maidstone Adult Education, in addition to attending life drawing sessions. Investigating UCA, which handily had a campus near to where I live, I looked at Access course in Fine Art, however, this was not compatible with a full-time job.
With my interest kindled I found the Open College of the Arts (OCA), which allowed me to work fulltime and study. Thus began my course of studies with OCA in 2013. OCA later merged with University of Creative Arts (UCA) as the distance learning department. My course of studies is on the BA degree pathway in painting and will be completed in the first half of 2022.
My influences in painting are varied but I have always been drawn to the drama and lighting especially of Rembrandt’s ink studies and the Caravaggio’s drama and virtuoso with a paintbrush. The Frida Kahlo’s work has a special resonance with me as she used most of her work to describe and visual her pain, an area of interest and exploration in my own practice.
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My Artistic CV
1977 Leaving Cert. A, higher level.
2008 - 2011 Maidstone Adult Education, painting
2009 – 2017 Nucleus Arts, Maidstone and Rochester
2010 A1 Open, Horsebridge Arts Centre, Whitstable
2011 Exhibition of Painting, Allington Library (solo exhibition)
2011 Post Nude, Horsebridge Arts Centre, Whitstable
2011 Maidstone’s Riverside Art and Makers Fair
2012 Post View, Horsebridge Arts Centre, Whitstable
2012 Aylesford Art Show
2012-13 Renaissance Crafts Gallery, Maidstone
2013 - present Open College of the Arts
2013 Post Nude 2, Horsebridge Arts Centre, Whitstable
2013 Aylesford Art Show
2014 Post Art, Horsebridge Arts Centre, Whitstable
2015 Post Nude, Horsebridge Arts Centre, Whitstable
2012 -18 Workshop Artist /Mentor at Nucleus Arts
2018 Aylesford Art Show
2017 -19 Artist /Mentor to Phoenix Arts Group Rochester.
2021 Nucleus Arts, Summer Show - The Halpern Gallery
2022 Solo exhibition, Collocations - pain & trauma,
The Halpern Gallery, Nucleus Arts, Chatham
2022 Graduated - Open College of the Arts, BA (Hons) Painting
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Eddie Tucker
