Bruer Tidman

Up a narrow wooden staircase, Brüer Tidman has for many years worked in a 19th century warehouse between the river and sea in Gt Yarmouth.  Stacked close and deep, his canvases entirely fill the studio, an astonishing accumulation of work, his past and preoccupations crowding in, so that to explore a path between them is a strange and beguiling performance.

Colour is the first impression – always brilliant, with dazzling opacity juxtaposed with broodingly deep translucency.  There are always figures, characters sometimes faithfully described and at other times almost entirely abstracted, their features briefly scored into a floating veil of paint.  There are images of those closest to the artist, notably his mother and Beth Narborough, but also many paintings and drawings of strangers, people moving through a night shelter or circus performers at the Yarmouth Hippodrome.

What binds this body of work is the enduring fascination with the body and human relationships – the illusive closeness and distances between us. And all of this emotion is communicated with a Modern commitment to paint, the deepest layering of pigment is confounded by a range of graphic and print techniques that throw our attention back to the flatness of surface and pleasure of colour.

Amanda Geitner

1961-64 Royal College of Art, London
1957 -61 Gt. Yarmouth College of Art Solo Exhibitions.
1991 Artspace Gallery, London.
1992 Rikers Art Diffusion Amsterdam
1997 Wahrenberger Gallery, Zurich
1998, 2001 John Russell Gallery, Ipswich
2000 Norwich Union House, Manchester
2004 The Warehouse Gallery, Lowestoft