Michael Corkrey

The established artist Michael Corkrey began his career at the Royal Academy in 1986. Since his graduation Corkrey has not only been commissioned as a portraitist by Charles Spencer (Lady Diana's brother) but has exhibited extensively throughout the UK with several group and solo shows with Sarah Myerscough Fine Art, including 'Sea-Change', 2008, 'New Seascapes', 2007 and 'Undertow', 2006. Michael Corkrey has also been exhibited by the gallery at numerous art fairs in London and in New York and Toronto.

Corkrey's paintings reveal elements of the romantic notions typically associated with the seascape genre yet are simultaneously cloaked in an air of cool detachment. Utilising photography as his source material, the artists adopts a more analytical approach to the subject. The paintings begin as exquisitely crafted academic images that are then systematically eroded through a series of compositional devices that relate to photographic and cinematic processes, and which allow the artist to play with the illusion of three-dimensional space. Finally wax or varnish is applied to the surface, which on one level distances the viewer from the image yet simultaneously makes them aware of the physicality of the painting's surface. By creating new possibilities for meaning we are presented with the enigma of the ocean in its many guises, from purely elemental to allegorical, and ultimately our own vulnerability in its presence. Corkrey reminds us that the sea does not possess a mystical ability to answer the questions we put to it, but in essence our relationship to it is a complex confrontation with ourselves.

Corkrey has acquired a number of accolades and awards throughout his career including the Henfield Award, 1987, the Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers' Award, 1988, the De Segonzac Travelling Scholarship, 1989, the Elizabeth Greenshield Foundation Award, 1990, the Most Popular Painting Prize, Hunting Art Prizes, 1993 and First Prize in the Hunting Art Prizes, 1994.