Bread by David Warrillow (b. 1956) is a still life capturing variously shaped loaves of bread on a white cloth and table. The focus of light is on the centre, illuminating the entirety of the one loaf in the foreground, and partially highlighting the three loaves surrounding, leaving the further loaf in the background predominantly in the dark. The bread is captured in intense realistic detail, with small, blended strokes of paint capturing the cracks in the burnt loaf and the creases at the top of them. This mastery of light and dark is most visible in the small strokes of the white cloth, as it curves from bright white to darker grey as it drapes off of the table. 

This simple subject of bread is turned into an intensely realistic still life through Warrillow following the influences of Spanish still-life masters, focusing on smaller strokes making up the larger form of the subject and the ability to capture subtle shifts of light. 

David Ross Warrillow, born 1956

Born in Glasgow, Warrillow studied from 1975 to 1979 at Glasgow School of Art, where David Donaldson and Danny Ferguson were early influences. He taught art in schools in Glasgow until 1989, where he gave up teaching to concentrate full-time on painting.
Warrillow paints simple forms in an intense realist style in the manner of the Spanish still-life masters Juan Sánchez Cotán and Luis Eugenio Meléndez. He aims for perfection of form and light, achieving an almost three-dimensional effect. He is very interested in the techniques of oil painting, and chose this form of realism because he felt it would be a challenge.