The following article first appeared in the Autumn 2007 issue of Green Pebble magazine (www.greenpebble.co.uk). Published with permission.

The instant appeal of Brüer Tidman’s work is his wonderful use of colour. There is no doubt he is a very accomplished colourist and often on a grand scale, as at the Salthouse 07 exhibition where his golden canvas of 8 feet by 16 feet dominated the entrants’ view.

'I like to lay down colour with resonance; colours that zing and cause the painting to come to life. Colour is important to drive mood,’ he explains one pleasant July day at his Great Yarmouth studio. He points to the swirling mists of yellows, reds and blues in his painting of the circus, Ring Boy; colours that draw the viewer into the canvas in a similar way that Turner’s broiling sunlight-filled skies do.

But his paintings are not conceived in the foreknowledge of what colour he will use. On that score, ‘I just pick up a pot of colour and go from there’, he explains. Indeed, most of his training was in black and white. However, this may be a bit of a simplification from a man who is very close to his emotions. His longest friend, artist Colin Self, says, ‘He uses colour to express emotions, as free association, like someone might suddenly have a crush on something – as would a designer simply select their favourite colours – and yet simultaneously use observed and local colour in different passages of the same work.’

Brüer is usually inspired by ‘people’; yet he is not moved by the simple stuff of what they are doing or what they look like. His paintings are about the harder side of life; of what they are thinking and, even closer to home, what he thinks about them.

In short, Brüer’s paintings are not just a manifestation of his skill as an artist; they also reflect the turmoil of his life. They capture how he comes to grips with life’s traumas sufficiently to empathise with those to whom life has dealt some rotten cards. He is a gentle, kind, man.

After Thatcher’s government ran down the Arts at colleges around the country, Brüer’s job as a teacher of life drawing at Lowestoft College dwindled away, so he took up helping the alcoholics and homeless at the spike (night shelter) in Norwich’s Oak Street Church.This was not far from where he and his second wife lived in Magpie Road. At the spike he did odd jobs, organised a darts competition between the spikes of Norwich and Lowestoft, but also managed to keep his sketching going – sometimes having to placate outraged drunks, once they realised he was sketching them, with payment in fags.

Finding a lingering bastion of institutional help in Cambridge, he managed to secure a modest grant of £500 to start drawing at the Great Yarmouth circus; and so started a love affair that has lasted to this present day. Indeed, at the time of writing he had organised a group of friends to see the opening of this season’s Hippodrome Circus.

To look at his sketch books during his times at the night shelters and the circus, is to know Brüer can draw. His mastery of colour is easily apparent; his knowledge of the human form is supported by his muscular mastery of draftmanship. Look into the eyes of the drawing of his mother, and the viewer is privy to Brüer’s expertly expressed love for her, and her love for him. Apparently, as a young student at Yarmouth Art school, he soon emerged as the best student draughtsman.

Over the years he has made many drawings and paintings of his mother, whom he now cares for, and he plans another series soon. Asked if she approves of his paintings of her, he rather depreciatingly mumbles he thinks she might. He is his mother’s only child and soon after the end of the Second World War they were plunged into uncertainty and travail. They worked it out together and ever since have stuck together through thick and thin.

Many of Brüer’s paintings have their own implicit narratives which are redolent with Brüer’s emotions. Reminiscent of old biblical images, characters in his earlier paintings all had a job to do in telling the artist’s story. Brüer describes (and titles) his painting of the Night Shelter as An Analogy of Art. The piece reflects a ‘mingling of different characters and objects relating to certain isms in the “History of Art”,’ from the cods’ heads laying not on newspaper but on a cheap print of Matisse’s goldfish, to Fauvre’s primary coloured scarf, to Picasso’s mirror. As Brüer explains, ‘The man with the parrot and the un-finished fist is the artist - and the parrot repeats it all over again.’

But Brüer is not comfortable with the idea of being ‘The Artist’ in any of his paintings. Latterly his paintings have contained two figures, one of whom ‘could be an artist’. That figure is often a male form – sexually aggressive, sharp and fractious – whilst the other is a female form – rounded or linear.

Brüer likes to look through the surface of people. As he thinks about the object of his painting, his thoughts become more subjective. His objects dissolve into atoms and molecules, which he then builds up for his image before they fade away into the background. In Duality, the figure in the shade represents the artists, and the other person – who is the object of the artist’s desire – is represented in a way that is moving towards the abstract.

Brüer sees into the artist and represents his spine, leg bone and internal organs with vivid strokes and his genitals are hidden, but ever present. The fruit on the table, which the female form notices, are realistic and represent the opposites in everything.

He is wary in his spoken communication, sensing danger in clapped-out clichés becoming dogma. Sometimes his spoken communication is resplendent with meaning but short on completion. As Colin Self says, ‘Art begins where words end’. Brüer no longer teaches but if he were to, he might advise that drawing is important but not the be-all and end-all.

In his book 'The Story of Art', Sir E H Gombrich makes an analogy of art with flower arranging, and this comparison rather well illustrates how an artist like Brüer juggles colour, shape, texture and form to make the image ‘right’. Brüer, however, goes a few steps further and deals in people and their meaning, going underneath what is presented. He likes to look below the surface and then replace those surfaces, in an equally superficial way, with paint applied by something like bubble wrap or string. Brüer wants viewers of his art to look beyond the comfortably familiar and to also see the calculated discord, the tensions and softness.

This is not a story to which we know the ending. Brüer is painting strongly and arguably his best is yet to come. Unfortunately, being rudely attached to this mortal coil means that Brüer, the businessman, who has to manage a complex business that has produced output for decades and hopefully will go on producing for decades, needs to have developed strategies for surviving and even flourishing as an artist.

There is no doubt his paintings are highly desired and will sell for many thousands of pounds. But, as with many others, he is a painter with no chaperone through the ferocious jungle of commerce. The fact that he has survived as long as he has is testimony to the fact that he is not to be underestimated.

The professional ladder for artists seems to be missing several rungs once the artist gets to a height where they can fall and do themselves serious damage. Indeed, in the UK it seems even more perilous than in Europe. As Colin Self riley notes, there seem to be more art museums in the UK bearing their rich patron’s name and more in Europe bearing the artist’s name.

Possibly the move by the Norwich Castle into having a ‘sale show’ for a limited number of leading contemporary artists such as Brüer Tidman, indicates a new and helpful direction, as it may replace some of the missing rungs on that ladder. An important venue such as the Castle can help artists of Brüer’s stature be recognised as leading artists and thereby gather unto themselves the sort of financial security that they deserve but so often, and for the sake of their art, necessarily eschew.

In the Autumn of 2008 Norwich Castle is planning three solo exhibitions of works by some of Norfolk’s finest artists, namely Brüer Tidman, John Kiki and Susan Gunn. Visitors may be able to buy some of the work exhibited.

Galleries with extensive experience of Brüer's work include Chappel Galleries (01206 240326), Ethna Dillon (01603 472663), Folkes Miller Fine Arts Gallery (01787 312278), and John Russell (01473 212051). Alternatively, interested parties may contact Green Pebble at michael@greenpebble.co.uk, who will try to arrange a suitable appointment with the artist at his studio.

Green Pebble magazine comes out quarterly in December, March, June and September. It concentrates on the visual arts in Suffolk and Norfolk and is free. www.greenpebble.co.uk