George Kan

George splits his time between New York, London and Seaview Isle of Wight. He accepts commissions when he is in the UK. Here is a bit about what influences and inspires him...

George says "The crab series has been going on for over a decade. Its very much influenced by the many crab shells collected over the years and housed in the family bathroom, and in the grand-parent’s bathroom.

The Crab focused pieces were some of the first works I sold professionally, whilst studying in London, and I've been exhibiting them in Seaview Art Gallery since 2012.

I’m interested in the ritual of beachcombing and shell collecting, its traditions, the satisfaction in its repetition, and its humour. Artists, like Paul Nash and the British surrealists in the 1930s were looking at bits of driftwood, imagining them as alive, and photographing them – it had a real influence on painting and sculpture for those artists. It is of course a much older British tradition, as shown by collections such as Queen Victoria's at Osborne house on the Isle of Wight. I have always been intrigued by the wide and diverse coastal flotsam and jetsam brought in or removed by every tide and the resulting ever changing environment teeming with life and beauty.

I paint the edible crab the most, repetitively and religiously, it makes me think of dressed crab salad. At Bembridge they used to throw all the shells from the restaurant back into the sea – which was weird for the beachcomber because you’d suddenly find a whole bunch of polished shells, gleaming in the muddy sand.