Roland Hicks’ paintings are exceptional, whatever way you look at them. Photographs of mundane objects are the starting point for his reinvention of the still life genre.

Things that have fallen to the ground, or that have been left lying after use, are caught by camera in this moment of vulnerability and then subjected to a transfiguration by paint that is at once dramatic and deadpan.

Heightening the unsuspected beauty of the discarded objects, Hick’s virtuoso hyper-realism makes the shift in scale into a qualitative as well as spatial expansion of the represented object.

Poignantly arrested, held in suspension in a thickened space,…

Roland Hicks’ paintings are exceptional, whatever way you look at them. Photographs of mundane objects are the starting point for his reinvention of the still life genre.

Things that have fallen to the ground, or that have been left lying after use, are caught by camera in this moment of vulnerability and then subjected to a transfiguration by paint that is at once dramatic and deadpan.

Heightening the unsuspected beauty of the discarded objects, Hick’s virtuoso hyper-realism makes the shift in scale into a qualitative as well as spatial expansion of the represented object.

Poignantly arrested, held in suspension in a thickened space, they seem to have been promoted to a new and deeper reality, realer than their origins, yet they never lose their cool.

Hicks has already garnered positive reviews from the art critics. Adrian Searle of The Guardian: ’These objects could be evidence. The paintings have weird, molten highlights and liquid shadows, and the objects glow against their soft-focus backgrounds.’

‘If a police forensic photographer dreamed of a job in advertising, maybe this is how his work would look, which is why Hicks is more than just a Gerhard Richter/ Richard Hamilton clone.’

Roland Hicks is a graduate of the Slade in London and Winchester School of Art. He has already won several awards for his work, including a runner-up prize in the prestigious NatWest Art Prize (1999).

As well as showing work in numerous group shows, he recently had his first solo show in London (1999). His work is in several private and public collections including the Saatchi Gallery.