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Raised on punk, the artist tried to channel that aggression into painting – but instead found himself arriving at a quiet, reflective style that has more in common with Nick DrakeMike Silva’s paintings are steeped in melancholy. Painted in oil, the defining motif of his latest exhibition is windows, each with the London light pouring through them. In Owen’s room, long swathes of orange curtain do little to keep the room dark, though the sky outside is gloomy. In Window sill with plant and camera, the dappled shadows of the foliage outside cast shadows over the ledge on which sit a mug (the tea or coffee drained), a succulent and an SLR camera. The last object provides a clue to Silva’s source material: a huge photographic archive of old homes and former lovers, which the artist keeps haphazardly stored in boxes and uses for inspiration.“I moved around a lot as a kid, I was saying goodbyes to friends, and taking photographs was always an acknowledgment of that,” Silva says. He was born in Sweden to a Sinhalese father and an English mother, and the family moving to Canada when he was very young. Mike and his mother arrived in south-east England after his parents split up. While studying art at Middlesex University in his early 20s, Silva flitted between the local punk scene and the gay scene in London. “It’s not that gay relationships are inherently less stable, but for me everything was very fluid,” he says. “There’s cruising, saunas, and that kind of thing. That informs how you meet people and how you view relationships, and the transient nature of those relationships.” Continue reading...