Personal Statement

I am perceiving that there is a huge shift in consciousness going on in the world, an awakening on a spiritual level, perhaps because people are finally starting to look at the system and begin to profoundly question what they are being told. The spiritual awakening which I refer to is causing more and more people to seek what is genuine in life and turn from what is hollow and meaningless, or worse, what they have been falsely lead to believe are the truly meaningful needs in life. I believe that art should be at the frontier of this new awakening. Art, for me, has always been a spiritual quest. As a child I would look at the world and see a miracle all around me, and art called me as a way of being able to engage with my own understandings and to deepen them with each work. When I say that my art is spiritual in nature I mean it in the sense of a vocation, a calling, a philosophy, a means of finding higher meaning in life and in those energies that cross my path and inspire me. I have always needed to engage with what calls me and what I find to be genuine. I am now in my middle years and I finally feel that I am ready to focus my creative perceptions on ever broader and more engaging levels, to start looking beyond the core of my subjects and to show how they interact and affect the worlds they create around them. This is a time for me of great expansion and excitement, and I feel at last that it's possible to remove any limits from my creative ideas and live them with all the intensity and integrity that I can muster, to begin actively engaging with the creative and spiritual awakening which is happening all over the world.

Biography

Bruce Atherton is a highly experienced multi disciplinary fine artist, primarily specialized in oil painting. Though Bruce's formation was, by choice, largely auto-didactic, he has also been trained in many disciplines ranging from traditional painting techniques to many contemporary and experimental mediums. Bruce's formal training started at the prestigious art school St. Martins in London (Foundation course),and then proceeded at the Scuola Libera del Nudo (Advanced Life painting school in Rome), Accademia delle Belle Arti (BA equivalent diploma in Rome), University of the Arts London (Master Degree in Digital Arts). Bruce has also run a specialized life drawing school and has taught fine art techniques at all levels of proficiency. Bruce's art practice has already spanned decades. In his mid twenties he started a very formative ten year period in Rome, a cultural centre of tradition and the history of painting, where his art developed greatly and he began exhibiting professionally. In 1999 he formed part of the artistic movement ‘Neoiconica’, founded by the celebrated Roman art critic Guglielmo Gigliotti and in collaboration with the ‘Studio di Arte Cannaviello’ in Milan, one of the major galleries in Italy, began a series of prestigious exhibitions at an international level. Bruce was also one of the founding artists of the movement 'Metropolism', which later went on to have exhibitions in Italian state institutions and was promoted by the famous Italian critic, Professor Bonito Oliva. In 2001, Bruce won official recognition at the XXIII Annual International Exhibition of Fine Art in Sulmona, winning the Targa D’Argento prize, and shortly after, he began his collaboration with the Gallery Magrorocca in Milan. 2001 heralded the beginning of another important phase of Bruce's career when he was commissioned by the Vatican in Rome to paint neo-canonized saints and official portraits. Bruce completed 13 official paintings for the Postulation of the Vatican over the next six years, which have been exposed to a global audience. After ten years in Rome Bruce returned to London to complete a Master degree in Digital Art, receiving a distinction. After completing his Master degree Bruce began working in the research department of UAL alongside Dr Tchalenko on experimental art research. Another eight year period saw Bruce working alongside Madrid based Factum Arte in the production of world class art works in collaboration with leading contemporary artists. Recent collaborations with galleries have seen Bruce become a founding member of the Beautalist art movement in London, renewed collaborations with the Dutch art group, Margin Art and Media, and have marked a return once again to the pursuit of his own fine art practice and the relentless pursuit of creative advancement.

Critical Texts

From Darkness to Light

Adapted from the writings of Stefano de Luca
The following text is an edited summary based on the essay Dal buio alla luce (2003) by the Italian philosopher and art critic Stefano de Luca. It presents the central themes of his interpretation of Bruce Atherton's work while preserving the essence of the original text.

"The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance."
— Aristotle

For Stefano de Luca, art and philosophy converge when artistic practice moves beyond the purely aesthetic and begins to explore the deeper nature of existence. Within this context, Bruce Atherton is described as an "artist-philosopher", whose paintings seek to preserve a connection with humanity's essential nature and the deeper realities that lie beneath outward appearances.

De Luca positions Atherton's work as an invitation to follow the path "from darkness to light", drawing upon Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Rather than offering an immediate or purely visual experience, the paintings encourage a profound shift in perception. They create what he describes as a "disturbance of inner equilibrium", challenging the familiar structures through which we understand both the external world and our own ideas.

The paintings resist superficial interpretation. Representation is interrupted, fragmented or consciously left incomplete, inviting the viewer to look beyond the visible surface. De Luca observes that "in the unfinished, the consciously unfinished, it finds its extraordinary richness of content and suggestion." Where figures emerge, they appear to rise "from layers of incalculable depth", bringing an immediacy that transcends conventional representation.

Existing in the tension between representation and abstraction, between emergence and dissolution, the works draw their strength from suggestion rather than description. They remain deliberately open in meaning, inviting contemplation rather than providing fixed answers. In De Luca's words, they "open countless doors before us" whilst remaining "multi-centred in meaning", encouraging the viewer to participate in an ongoing search for "the light".

Ultimately, De Luca sees Atherton's work as an invitation to contemplate the enduring questions of human existence: our intrinsic nature, that which transcends purely material reality, and the possibility of rediscovering our shared humanity. By reconnecting us with this deeper essence, the paintings remind us of our fundamental unity, suggesting that it is through recognising this shared condition that we may begin to transcend our differences and rediscover a sense of connectedness and wholeness.

Adapted from: Stefano de Luca, Dal buio alla luce, 2003.