Charlie Roberts
Practice
Gesso, graphite pastel and acrylic on canvas
132.5 × 122.5 cm
Charlie Roberts's Practice, executed in gesso, graphite pastel, and acrylic on canvas, commands attention as a large-format work that fills the eye with the concentrated tension of a single athletic moment. A male tennis player launches into a dramatic serve on a clay court, his figure rendered with a hyperrealistic yet deliberately stylized sensibility, the body elongated and the musculature of the legs and torso exaggerated to amplify the physical intensity of the motion. A warm palette of terracotta, soft white, and sky blue dominates the surface, with accents of teal and forest green anchoring a background that includes a striped viewing awning, water elements, and evergreen trees, while scattered tennis balls and a ball hopper ground the scene in the quiet repetition of training rather than competition. The brushwork is meticulous and smoothly blended, with particular care given to the gradations of skin tone and muscle definition that make the figure feel simultaneously idealized and anatomically credible. The work asks the viewer to hold still inside a moment of supreme physical effort, attending to the discipline and solitude that underlie athletic excellence before any audience arrives.
NOK 157 500
Incl. 5% Norwegian art tax (kunstavgift)
