Only objects that are recognised can be distorted, which is something I often do in my work. However, this distortion is not so much the expression of a state of mind as an element of formal tension. The objects, animals, people, etc. in my paintings are often deliberately ‘wrong’ and unnaturalistic. Were I to render them ‘correctly’, they would jar with the formal requirements of the picture. Plain naturalism and realism are tedious and amounts to no more than an easily acquired skill that is more readily associated with the decorative arts.

Roland Schauls, 2022