Ian Cumberland

The Boys, 2024

Oil on linen | Unframed: 100 x 100 cm

‘The Boys is a portrait of my nephews, painted not as a family record but as a reflection on youth. While rooted in their likeness, the portrait is less about individual identity and more about evoking the layered emotions of youth – its quiet resilience, vulnerability, and unspoken uncertainties. I hoped to preserve not a fixed moment, but the unspoken, complex emotions that mark the passage from childhood toward adolescence.’ - Ian Cumberland.

Ian Cumberland is a Belfast-based artist. A graduate of Ulster University, his work constructs staged scenes that disrupt everyday familiarity – blending oil painting with sets, sculpture and video to interrogate mass media’s influence on identity and perception.

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