Wendell Gladstone is a painter who works with acrylic and gesso to create texturally rich canvases. Applying paint like a collagist, Gladstone works in his signature palette of warm ochres and ambers, pastel greens and blush pinks to craft enticing dreamscapes. Pre-Raphaelite figures with long flowing hair populate his paintings, languishing in fields or peering through windows. The works possess a deep sense of mysticism and romanticism with emotive signifiers such as melting candles, fallen petals and tear droplets continually surfacing. Influences from Art Nouveau and the Pre-Raphaelites filter into his illustrative register and there’s an undeniable magical realist strain within his oeuvre. His characters could easily be plucked from the pages of an Angela Carter or a Gabriel García Márquez’s novel.Surreal paintings emerge from this rich mixing of sources, leading viewers down the various psychological turns within Gladstone’s sombre yet alluring realm. ...
