Neil Edwards

Lives and works in New York, NY

Artist statement

I paint to ask a simple, uncomfortable question: if everything fades, how do we want to spend the time we have? My work began with We Are All Fading, a series of faceless figures rendered in rich color, texture, and fashion. Removing the face was never about erasing identity, it was about universalizing it. No matter who we are, what we've achieved, or how we're remembered, we are all, eventually, fading. I wanted the work to hold that truth gently rather than gravely, as an invitation to notice life more closely while we're still living it. That question has continued to evolve. Lately I've become interested in how we spend the time we're given, specifically, how much of it now passes through a screen. We photograph the sunset before we've fully seen it. We record the moment instead of living inside it. My more recent work turns toward that tension: figures looking up, away from their phones, toward the sky, toward each other, reclaiming presence as something worth protecting. Technically, my process is rooted in traditional oil painting, layered underpaintings, slow buildup, conservation varnishing, because I believe the physical object should be made to last as long as the questions it's asking. I often work from personal memory and cultural reference points, immersing myself in the sounds, films, and images of a period before I put a single brushstroke down. Before I was a painter, I was a professional athlete. That discipline, showing up, doing the repetitive work,...

Artwork