I was in a sleeping dream
When a policeman brought my mother home
By the window I didn't scream
I was too old for that

I was in a drunken dream
The pubs were closed, it was three o'clock
At the bottom of the street it seemed
There was a policeman lost in the fog

I understand but I don't see it
I understand but I don't see it
I understand but I don't read it
Futures and pasts

You can cry for your lost childhood
We can cry for our lost childhoods
But remember how you hated it
And worse 'cause you couldn't state it?

Sleeping, after P.G, 2019. Oil on linen, on aluminium, 90 x 56 cm

Floating in still water, 2018/19. Oil on Linen, on aluminium, 72 x 56 cm

Futures and Pasts, 2019. Oil on linen, on aluminium, 61 x 50 cm

Untitled, 2019. Oil on linen, on aluminium, 61 x 50 cm

Richard Wathen, born 1971, London, lives and works in Suffolk. UK. Wathen paints fictional portraits that invite ambiguity. The age and gender of the portrayed are often uncertain. “I was interested in portraying someone at more than one point in their life; taking the cubists’ idea of multiple viewpoints and applying it to time”. The figures seem fragile, lost in contemplation, perhaps considering the incommunicable sensations of being alive.

Richard Wathen had solo shows at Max Wigram Gallery, London; L&M Arts, New York; Salon 94, New York. His work was part of group exhibitions at Hauser and Wirth, London; Blum and Poe, Los Angeles; Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna. His work is included in the collections of the MoCA Los Angeles and the Olbricht Collection, Berlin.