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Biographical Note continued ...
British critics are often quick to point out the European heritage in this painter's work. One can easily recognise the influence of Otto Dix, Kokoschka, and perhaps George Grosz, but her nudes are sensuous and painterly in style, and very much her own. Above all, this connection to her roots is the most striking when one considers how powerful her nudes remain despite their naked or half-dressed abandonment and apparent vulnerability. There is nothing British and oblique about their gaze.
Her figures may look at you, unabashed, a little startled, or may prefer to contemplate some dark corner of their soul, amused, pensive, or even with genuine ennui. When they abandon themselves, they surrender as much to the richness of the paint as to the viewer's eye.
In 1992 Dr Peter Marginter, the Austrian Cultural Attaché, observed: "Inge's women in particular, invariably sensual or erotic, sometimes sinister or humorous, come from the same background as Schiele's nudes, born as victims of male oppression ... but her powerful naked or scantily dressed figures seem to be quite independent, free to choose or refuse."
lnge's life does not find its basis in our everyday reality; she is only a visitor who soon returns to the world of her own remarkable creation.
Inge Clayton is a frequent exhibitor at the Royal Academy. Other notable exhibitions include the Royal Society of Art; Art for Equality at the ICA; Kunsthaus Schaller, Stuttgart; The Camden Arts Centre; Lumley Cazalet; and Galerie Mozart-Salzburg.
The Artist has had solo shows at the following:
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