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Known for his exploration of socio-political themes, painter Samson Tudor presents his exhibition at Biscuit Factory
Image: Memoir by Samson Tudor at The Biscuit Factory Newcastle, 2023, Oil on canvas, (102cm x 76cm)
This month The Biscuit Factory welcomes painter Samson Tudor’s new solo exhibition of original canvases, drawings and mixed media artworks. Known for his exploration of socio-political themes in his work Tudor has framed this exhibition around the notion of ‘the world as stage’. Inhabited by various themes, allegories and portents of the theatre his large-scale scenes evoke a world of carnivalesque characters, self-portraits and ciphers that investigate the world’s melancholic underbelly.
In these divisive and difficult times, it’s apt that this exhibition comments on the state of human existence. The difficulties and struggles. Constructing visual narratives where the viewer can see themselves and others represented and reflected back. Myths are exposed, egos pricked and poked at for fun and whilst there’s plenty to recognise in our own lives Tudor’s work also stands as his own singular imagination. Directed like actors, performing their roles and fitted into place.
His compositions are dense with detail and action. Faces worn down and fatigued, simultaneously grotesque and recognisable. Abstract and figurative like a more expressive modern counterpart to the North-East’s own Norman Cornish in its depiction of working life and the working classes but Tudor bathes his own work in more surreal, imaginative settings.
Samson Tudor’s exhibition opens at The Biscuit Factory on Friday 28th April
