We encountered the work of Tejada Maggi at the Jerwood Contemporary Painters exhibition. Because of the large number of artists (thirty) taking part in the show, only one work by each was on view. It also had to do with achieving the main curatorial objective of the show: presenting a view of the practice of painting in the UK. While this is understandable it is frustrating for the viewer if he is more interested in getting to know the work of the artists on display than in the curatorial mission of the show.

Gabriel Tejada Maggi was represented by the work Residues of Hell (see right). Discussing the picture the critic Cherrie Smith, we both agreed that the work reminded us strongly of Rubens; the ethereal, heavenly aspect of the work combined with the tumbling clouds and other abstract shapes (that seemed reminiscent of plump cherubs at play) brought the old master to mind.

Wishing to gain a better insight into his work, we arranged to visit the artist in his studio. During a long and discursive chat about the work, Gabriel agreed that Rubens was an important reference, although he was guarded about other influences. Artists are beset my multiple influences in today’s art world and this, paradoxically, can serve as an emancipation for their own practice.

It is easier for an artist to develop a sense of confidence in their own voice and prevent it being strangled by some dominant contemporary trend if there are a multiplicity of different (and contradictory) influences.

As the critic JJ Charlesworth says in the introduction of the catalogue of the show, artists are no longer part of a small band of practitioners trying to forge a new aesthetic through a direct relationship with the tradition that precedes them, but rather, the eclecticism of today’s practice should be seen as ‘the effect of a great broadening of activity that means many more painters are working simultaneously, in a more aesthetically plural culture.’

Notwithstanding, in trying to contextualize the work, we see a combination of the old masters in references the artist makes to traditional painting technique such as perspective and creating the illusion of space and more contemporary devices; the return to the figurative (but expressed with a looser more irreverent mood) that creates a connection with artists such as David Hockney and Dietmar Lutz. The idiosyncratic voice that emerges is vigourous and refreshing and seems to operate in several different cultural levels.