Demons in Motion: Lincoln Townley reveals a “Dance with the Devil”
Written by Nínive Vargas de la Peña for Sotheby’s Contemporary Curated. March 2022.
As a visual poet of violence, Lincoln Townley’s figurative paintings capture the darker side of the human experience and apprehend it within recognizable gestures and a menacing palette. Having participated in the 2019 Venice Biennale, with exhibitions in New York City, London, Los Angeles, Berlin, and Singapore, the highly successful self-represented artist creates looming images of the foulest gradients of our soul. His ability to capture the darkness of his sitters has made him a portraitist of several celebrities such as Al Pacino, John Cleese and Russel Brand, while still working in parallel collections that encompass the experience of contemporary malice. After having found solace in the work of artists like Francis Bacon and Edvard Munch, his art continues to reclaim the experience of confrontation and doubt, as when looking into a stained reflection, unsure—and scared—if what we just saw is indeed our own spectral image.
"When I paint, my energy is focused on winning, squeezing every drop of life out of my existence."
- LINCOLN TOWNLEY
Poet
of the Macabre
Lincoln Townley. Dance with the Devil (2020). Private Collection.In Dance with the Devil (2020) a man is connected to a parallel entity composed of a smoke-like texture, which stands as a spectrum to his own existence. Attached to this double by way of his upper limbs, the main figure stands distorted while remaining recognizable as an anthropomorphic being through his fully rendered core. The figures appear to skirt the limits between existence and decay, while being immersed in a crimson prism reminiscent of the polychromy applied by Francis Bacon in his 1962 triptych, Three Studies for a Crucifixion (see fig. 1). In a cube composed of red, orange and black, Townley’s figures seem to participate in a phantasmagorical dance while waiting for the scene to achieve absolute darkness.
Former nightclub frequent, Lincoln Townley entertained bankers and financiers on nights out in London’s Soho into from 2005 to 2010. Townley was completely consumed by his environment, leading him to paint the clients he looked after while hiding these pictures under his bed at a small flat Old Compton Street, ashamed of the images which were emerging. In 2012, Townley exploded on the art scene, with his new works accesible through Bank Vault and the artist himself, always reflecting the fascination with what powerful people are willing to go through to find success.