Cool, but not calm

The paintings of John Bellany seem to appal and inspire in equal measure. He creates a busy, loudly-coloured theatre of whatever is significant to him, in which he casts people, animals and miscellaneous props so as to create poeticised moods - a riotous demonstration of his emotions. This kind of uninhibited, painterly romanticism does not usually go down well with the cool people, but it works in Bellany’s favour - he's so uncool he's cool. In this way the artist sets a fearless example to artists to live and breath what is important to them, and ignore the mean rulebooks of fashion.

Neal Brown