Povey's paintings explain themselves just as the silhouette of an arguing couple does, gesturing in a midsummer alleyway viewed from a passing train. Sunday, south London, the hot streets empty, a couple drawing lines in their lives.

The English say 'Double Dutch', meaning 'inexplicable', however the Dutch word 'Definitie' means 'Definition' in English. Defined and explained, like aphorisms acquired across a lifetime.

"Limes discarded across a table, and a glass of tea abandoned precariously, the bowl of mother's teaspoon enlarged and disfigured in a rusty dream. Marzia's grandmother, beautiful and romantic in a former time, arm in arm with demobbed sailors celebrating on the Via Bruno Buozzi in Genoa, and her memory pinned up with my writing, from yesterday in the studio.

The figure is everything, as are we all. Our memories and concerns, our buried longings and private thoughts. Our ambitions in an ever-dwindling life. Our sense of humour and the beliefs we carry under our declared beliefs. This is what our arms encircle when we embrace someone, and this is the complexity of their definition.” - Edward Povey

Edward Povey was born in 1951 in London, England, and grew up as an only child, painting obsessively and writing prose and music. He studied drawing at Eastbourne College of Art and Design, and then psychology and painting at The University of Wales. While in his twenties, he made his name as a mural painter, and was filmed by the BBC while he created 25 massive murals. He later came to regard this period as his apprenticeship.

He moved his studio to the Caribbean Island of Grenada for seven years. This adventurous decision was taken to allow him to concentrate on painting on canvas and to give himself a fresh vision away from family issues. During this time his work began to be acquired by collectors in the United States. He studied color and composition with established artists such as the Danish architectural abstractionist Paul Klose, the American colorist Malcolm T. Liepke, and the Belgian art dealer Jan de Maere. By 1991, he was showing in John Whitney Payson’s New York gallery beside 20th Century American masters, and over the next three decades his work was exhibition in galleries spanning seven countries.

In 1991 The University of Wales commissioned Povey to create a major painting for a chamber concert hall in Wales, measuring 20 x 40 feet, for which he designed a work with intensely direct narrative, comprising seven panels framed by trompe-l'œil stonework.

By the year 2000, Povey’s work was acquired by prominent institutions including The National Museum of Wales; MOMA Wales; the National Library of Wales; the Glynn Vivien Art Museum; the Anglesey Museum Art Collection and numerous corporate art collections, and in 2018 The British Library documented his career for the British nation.