They added: “Spiers spent 25 years studying the mastery of old Renaissance and Baroque painting and creating works compete with the high drama, passion and subtle intrigue achieved by those European masters. They match the satisfying realism of Baroque painting, rousing the same intensity while painting with the hindsight of Cubism and Surrealism, distorting and contorting figures. Spiers’s paintings are in no way conventional. They delve deep into the darker corners of the human psyche, hauling twisted figures up to the surface of the canvas. The most exciting thing about the work is seeing the artist challenge himself and learning how Spiers feels comfortable where others don’t.”

From Tarantino and Hitchcock to Velázquez, Rubens, Rembrandt and Bernini, Spiers draws on an eclectic set of influences. He says: “I see myself as a truffle pig of the visual. A disembodied nose constantly sniffing in search of that which it desires. I try not to let my conscious thought processes get in the way of that ‘talent’. It means that there is a great deal of variety in the ingredients that go into my work. And it’s taken a long time to work out what combinations of influences work together.”

His latest show at Saatchi Yates is his largest scale presentation in London and what he considers his biggest achievement to date. It follows solo exhibitions at London’s Carl Kostyál, James Hyman Fine Art, James Coleman and Hales Gallery and the Museum of the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla in Mexico.

Spiers plans to follow his latest exhibition, ‘Benjamin Spiers: Desire Lines’, with a month of luxurious relaxation and pampering. He adds: “I have no plans beyond that just now. But whatever I do next, I’m determined to move onward and upward – the best is to come, and I’m utterly determined to develop and expand my work and to make the most astonishing images that are only now beginning to take shape in my imagination. I’m very ambitious and optimistic for the future.”