Artist Profile - Gary Sollars

Part of a critique on Sollars written by Gaynor Evelyn Sweeney

Gary Sollars art is one of gender and body politics within contemporary society touching on a range of themes and concepts and contextualised through the photorealist genius of painting. He is an acclaimed artist in his own field and exhibited in the 2002 and 2004 Liverpool Biennial, and at the Whitworth Gallery, the Walker Art Gallery and National Portrait Gallery.
He has had his work featured as a cover for Psychotherapy Review and been reviewed by several publications such as the Independent Magazine, the Observer and others.
He explores diverse but relevant subjects from the conventional with a sense of tangibility and enlightenment to modern society.
Originally from Chester, Sollars now live and works in Liverpool, a city for which he holds great affection.
Some of his paintings denote an intimacy with the narratives, whether derived from connotations of flesh or further symbolised in the allegory. The voyeur is witness to the vulnerability of the human body and mortality.
The flesh registers those experiences which we are all vulnerable to i.e. love, anger, mortality and so forth. The canvas is the artist’s flesh and with it Sollars inscribes his experiences, explication and exploitation of himself.
He is now working on a number of new projects spanning the next two years, including paintings, installations and other artistic pursuits.