Real

"The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real."

Have you ever stared at yourself in the mirror for so long that your eyes watered and you could not recognise the person staring back at you? I find it terribly unsettling especially when feeling sleep deprived or slightly fuddled, but this experience is the only way I can try and explain Lucian Freud. His works are all starkly honest and unforgiving showing the simultaneous ugliness and beauty that all humans possess. Regarding his work he said,"I paint people not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be."

An interesting man who lived a colourful and varied life he moved to Britain from Germany as a child to escape the rise of Nazism. In later life he had many many lovers and is said to be the father of approximately 40 illegitimate children. His subjects are by in large from life not fantasy; his family, his friends, his children, his lovers and painters he knew became muses."The subject matter is autobiographical, it's all to do with hope and memory and sensuality and involvement."