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Al Saralis

Al Saralis has been a professional artist and art teacher since graduating from Newport in 1977 with an Honours degree in Fine Art. This was followed by a post graduate teaching course in Cardiff in 1978. Hie lives and works in Hampshire where he is Head of Art at Churcher’s College in Petersfield and has a studio next to his home in Four Marks. His surname derives from his Greek grandfather who settled in South Wales and worked in the coal mining industry during the first half of the 20th century. Al was brought up in this working class environment of The Rhymney Valley, where his father and many relatives also worked in the colliery. He was fortunate in that his education, and family, provided him with the opportunity to study Fine Art and thus began his career as a painter.

The human figure has always been his main source of inspiration, since his early life drawing sessions at Art college. This fascination in the form, structure and movement of the figure continues to be central to Al Saralis’s work. The paintings usually consist of a single figure, which is stripped of any narrative reference. Over the years his painting style has moved from a semi abstract style to a more traditional form of painting. Recent works have included a series of paintings where the figure has been fragmented or left incomplete. These were in part inspired by a trip to Florence where Al saw the unfinished ‘Prigioni’ sculptures of Michelangelo. While the paintings reflect the classical beauty of the human figure the dramatic use of light, coupled with the directness of the pose, results in images that are powerful and sometimes confrontational and which also echo the fragility and vulnerability of contemporary man.

During 2008 and 2009 Al Saralis has restricted his subject matter still further, concentrating on paintings of the face and head.

He says, ‘As an artist one is forever making decisions, re-considering directions and reflecting on one's work as part of the creative process. I have always been interested in the classical beauty of Renaissance painting, and this alongside my fascination with the human form has led my work to develop to where it is now. I feel that recent paintings are in a sense, indulgent. They allow me to explore the complexities of painting skin and its subtlety of colour, to create something that exists in its own right. Many recent paintings have featured heads and faces, but I am not a portrait painter. I use a restricted number of models to try to achieve my aim, which is to create something that is beautiful as well as being interesting; contemporary as well as being classical and something stripped of any narrative, that is timeless.’


Head
Oil on canvas
160 x 70cm
£4000

Head study
Oil on canvas
20 x 20 cm
sold

Profile II
Oil on canvas
100 x 80 cm
£2750



Study
Oil on canvas
40 x 100 cm
£1900

Sketch II
Oil on canvas
30 x 30 cm
£900

Sketch 1
Oil on canvas
30 x 30 cm
£900



Looking Back
Oil on canvas
30 x 30 cm
£900


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