Edward Povey’s paintings are complicated deceits of human realism. He explores the human experience of mortality, sexuality, regret and longing, although he is opposed to the idea of using obvious narratives in paintings, because he insists that paintings are visual rather than literary. The title BLESSURE is Dutch for injury. The bruise on the arm of the figure is a small gesture towards the corporeal state of human beings, and the figure is characteristically vulnerable and aged by life. We are presented with a scene of precariousness: a house of cards standing in the presence of its enemy, the fan; a spilled cup and saucer of tea, teeters on the edge of a table. Every texture is worked to convey its history and the nature of its fabric, even though Povey does not regard himself as a traditional Realist. As with all Povey works of this period, the painting is founded in a Verdaccio palette borrowed from Raphael’s altarpiece flesh (1483-1520), onto which he constructs a chord of colour: the lucid melody of the lemons floating across the supporting shirt and tea colour, and all founded in the rhythm of the undulating grey and plain chocolate base. It is a very considered apparatus, but it touches the chaos of human internal life.