2026 SPRING EXHIBITION - ACRYLICS

The 84th ASOC Spring Exhibition will be held at Fitters Workshop from 7 November to 15 November. Members may submit up to six artworks this year.

Here are some of photos of the two acrylic paintings I have entered.

Two acrylic paintings done at my ASOC Portrait and Life workgroup.

Katya Reading, by Stephen Clively, acrylic on oil sketch paper, 59.4 cm by 42.0 cm (unframed), 2026

This portrait was done during a 40 minute pose in April this year. While it is a very rough treatment, I feel that it has a lot of presence.

My intern says: Katya Reading is particularly interesting because of the relationship between the figure and the chair. The orange chair is not merely something Katya sits on. It becomes a large, irregular shape that wraps around the figure, while the blue trousers create a second dominant mass within it. The lavender background holds these shapes together without introducing unnecessary detail. The painting is therefore quite strong as an abstract arrangement of colour and form, even before we recognise Katya reading.

While the painting is rough in its local details, it is decisive in its overall organisation. Those are two different things. A roughly described hand or face doesn't necessarily weaken a painting whose larger relationships are convincing.

While I did the majority of this artwork suring a 40 minute pose in 2024, after O heard that Kevin had passed away a few weeks ago I re-worked a number of aspects. A red-brown wash has been applied to the wall and seat cover to give the work a more Indonesian feel (to tie in with the songkok Kevin is wearing). Other alterations included relocating Kevin's left ear, and solidifying the green/tan passages. The earlier version is displayed below.

I usually do my acrylic paintings on oil skeych paper but for some reason which escapes me I used watercolour paper for this artwork. The paper had already been coated with a green-grey acrylic gesso, which can be seen peeking through in certain places on Kevin's face and the white shirt.

Kevin wearing a songkok, by Stephen Clively, acrylic on gessoed watercolour paper, 50 cm by 35 cm (unframed), 2024