"Stripper" by Charles Thomson

"Stripper" by Charles Thomson, 40 x 30", oil and acrylic on canvas. Source.

Charles Thomson instigated the Stuckist movement in 1999. He has been the driving force behind it and responsible for most of its media coverage. He has led demonstrations against the Turner Prize for seven years, stood as a Stuckist for parliament, reported Charles Saatchi to the Office of Fair Trading, and run a Stuckist gallery. Previously he was a member of the Medway Poets (1979) and a full-time poet for over a decade. He was briefly married to the artist Stella Vine. He now lives in North London.

Charles Thomson paints in flat areas of mostly high key colour with black outlines, and sees the influence for this from Japanese woodblock prints, Van Gogh and German Expressionism. Subjects are mainly people and situations in his everyday life, but transformed to show "a synthesis of the material, mental, emotional and spiritual." He has observed the paintings often have alternate readings.