How can an artist depict power? Or success? For British artist Lincoln Townley, the starting point for answering these questions lays in psychology.

Prior to his career a self-taught painter, Townley worked in public relations with high profile figures and celebrities as well as in nightclub marketing, and these experiences ultimately informed his creative practice. One of his best-known painting series is his “Banker” collection, which he has dedicated more than a decade to developing. Conceptually delving into the darker side of money, wealth, greed, and power, and more specifically the bankers who gatekeep that world, Townley’s gestural and abstract “portraits” tap into anxieties and desires that permeate the contemporary zeitgeist.

Lincoln Townley, left: Power Eats Weakness (2026), right: Draped in Success (2026), both from the “Success” collection. Courtesy of Eclipse Art Group.

Now, Townley has undertaken a new project that investigates themes around success and its underpinning psychology with his “Success” collection. Like with the “Banker” collection, “Success” doesn’t shy away from the subject’s darker side, which can be traced in how Townley renders his figures. With faces obscured by gestural brushstrokes they evoke the uncanny valley, alluding to a sense of warped humanity. The hope and desire to be successful is pervasive in modern life—and arguably in pre-modern life as well—and through visual means the artist homes in on the deeply human drive to succeed and what separates those who do from those who don’t.

Townley’s representatives have noted that collectors of his work often mirror the artists subjects. Powerful, wealthy, and by many metrics successful, the audience for Townely’s paintings seem to see some part of themselves and their own psychology reflected.

Lincoln Townley with works from the archive in his studio. Courtesy of the artist.

Townely’s work is available through an international network of authorized dealers, which has recently expanded to Eastern Europe as well as Slovakia and the Czech Republic through his partnership with Eclipse Art Group. Based in Prague, Eclipse Art Group is now positioned to launch the “Success” collection and open the door to a new region of collectors of Townley’s work. This evolution in the artist’s market follows a number of significant milestones, including selling out of all original works and prints at London Art Fair 2025, and the announcement that he will exhibit at the Palazzo Bembo during the 2026 Venice Biennale. Townley formerly exhibited at the Palazzo Bembo in 2024, which saw the presentation sell out.

Lincoln Townley working on a painting from the “Bankers” collection. Courtesy of the artist.

While the debut of the “Success” collection heralds a conceptual evolution in Townley’s practice, it also highlights a technical one as well. The artist employs a distinctive impasto technique in the execution of his paintings, building up precise section of his work to a degree rivaling relief sculpture, while others are left comparatively shallow. Using oil paints, this sometimes requires months for the painting to dry.

In the context of Townley’s figuration, the impasto pigment gives not only a sculptural quality to his paintings but a sense that the figures might reach out from the surface of the canvas itself. Returning to the artist’s underlying interrogations of power and success, his forms physically emerge to meet and challenge the viewer where they stand.

Explore the work of Lincoln Tonwnley with Eclipse Art Group here.