"As Bacon said to me in 1980: 'Why do so many artists remain trapped in the worn-groves of illustrational representation? The moment one starts putting-in eyes, nose, mouth and ears, the banality set in. One hopes to put them in as arbitarily as possible.' Yet Scattergood-Moore, Lucien Freud, and David Hockney et al are still trapped in the banality of illudtration by putting in (or rather, filling-in) eyes, nose, mouths, ears:why? We need to take up Bacon's quest towards arbitary-order ( ordered-chance, critical-chaos). . ."

Alex Russell
The School of Francis Bacon
Sunday, July 9th 2000
Francis Bacon Image Gallery Guestbook