The Man Behind the Canvas
Rob follows the whirlwind career of one of the UK’s most exciting portrait artists and sculptors, Paul Oz. Written by: Rob Ward
I would like to think we will all go through at least one life-affirming moment in our time. An experience or outcome that makes us realise we’re on the right track and have made the right decisions. Life has so many junctions, so many decisions, and it’s these affirming moments that guide us and give us the confidence that those decisions were the right ones. Time does fly, and it’s easy to keep your head down and forget to appreciate what progress you’ve made. Although Paul Oz’s career in art wasn’t necessarily formed from a life-affirming moment as such, the decision to transition from a software engineer, only painting at the weekends, to painting full time in 2010 was very much affirmed nine years later. We’ll get onto that later though. First, let’s go back to the beginning.
Paul actually chose to base his future on a more conventional route of education in the form of an aerospace engineering degree. At 18 years old, Paul had dipped a toe in the waters of art, and even as a pre-teen, he had learned the skill of perspective, drawing trains coming out of tunnels, perfecting the appearance of them disappearing to a point in the distance.
“Prior to that, I won a prize for a felt tip collage of parrots in trees aged 5, I guess that’s the earliest evidence. I still have that artwork. I think Lego has a lot to answer for too; I used to spend days inventing and building things, and couldn’t wait
to get out of bed in the mornings and get back to building”, Paul remembers. In 2010, Paul took the plunge into painting full time, concentrating on the most visual impact possible, using thick swages of bright, neon, oil-based paint in huge scale, celebrating stars of stage, screen and pop iconography as well as producing gallery pieces reminiscent of an ‘80s child including Lego figures, the A-Team van, Rocky Balboa and Super Mario, “I’ve created 28 artworks over the last five years, covering everything I grew up with, played with, broke, idolised or was scared by”.
123
