Kenneth Loynes was born in Birmingham, England. His parents separated when he was quite young, and he was then sent to live with foster parents. He attended the village Blue Coat school and received no further education. Widely travelled, a survivor of the WWII generation and witness to the violent conflicts and failures of vision that have scarred the post-war half century, a lifetime in painting has taught the artist one durable meaning: that art remains among the few, free ways in which society can, through the power of imagination, recognise and recreate itself.
Affiliated with no school, style or movement the artist's work is valued by private collectors in Europe, Africa and the far East.
The vicar of a local church asks for a painting of the resurrection, a sequel to a Crucifixion I did for the church some years ago. Interpretation is left to me, now as then. For the vicar and his congregation the subject-matter is conceptual. For me no more than enabling. It has its specifics. I take these as definite, together with given size and spatial limits; the picture plane and its four edges.'
'Crucifixion is a known event, Resurrection its
extension beyond knowing and tangibility. Painting cannot pass through
these boundaries. I turn, therefore, to myth, to verticality. The dead
man on the cross and the double death of Christian belief is a passion,
compulsion, obsession, an addiction essential to life. All that counters
it is perceived to be subversive: Fighting, repression, erasure,
destruction, numbness, paralysis. But when these are acknowledged,
welcomed, accepted, they are the very roots of creation.'
'The
Dionysian transformation. From the cult of light, good and obedience
comes the repressed Eros, heralding wildness, drunkenness and the
abandon of the returning god of fertility; the god of union and life
that cannot be denied. The dark body of the crucified; the darkness of
an unseen face, and of the robe, moving in a wind. The ground is white: a
warm, white, emptiness. The figure stands head to foot beyond the
frame, stepping into the space of the church.'
'This will not be a rejectable image. Don't do what you think is right. It isn't.'
Kenneth Loynes (1924-2002)