Piano Tuners

Surreal scenes filled with carnivalesque performers consume Ryan Mosley’s oeuvre and Piano Tuners is an emblematic example of the artist’s visual language. Here, a strange narrative unfolds against a monochrome backdrop in this shallow frieze-like composition. Abstracted natural forms organically fragment the picture surface and behind them stand two men absorbed in an odd transaction pivoting around a bowler hat held by both figures in the centre of the canvas.  During his studies Mosley worked as a security guard at London’s National Gallery, and his exposure to the Old Masters became a key inspiration for his practice. ‘I like the fact that passages in art history can sometimes fool you’, he explains. ‘Characters become almost timeless, like looking at painting from the 13th century which could have been painted yesterday.’ Art historical and literary motifs frequently infiltrate the groupings of characters that emerge from Mosley’s paintings but their exact source always remains tantalisingly elusive. Piano Tuners was included in the Saatchi Gallery’s Painters’ Painters exhibition in 2016.