Steven Whitehead

First published in 2008, Dr Michael Paraskos's book on the British painter Steven Whitehead is one of the classic texts on post-photorealist painting. Here Paraskos establishes the principles of post-photorealist painting as taking the American photorealist tradition as a starting point and then enhancing that tradition through use of influences from the wider history and theory of art. In doing so Paraskos shows that although photography might be the starting point for post-photorealist art, the simple emulation of photography in paint is never enough for true painting. Whitehead is the ideal exemplar for this. His work is certainly rooted in the history of photorealist art, but he hybridises a deep understanding of the American photorealist tradition with other realist and non-realist art forms, including nineteenth-century Biedermeier painting and romanticism, and twentieth-century Surrealism and magic realism to produce poetic images that move well away from the historic definition of ordinary photorealism. As Paraskos shows, because of this, Whitehead's paintings depict worlds that are simultaneously familiar and uncanny, but always poetic and strangely beautiful.