Exposed Arm was exhibited for the first time in Violence and Sensation, James Hyman Gallery, 2008.

As in the paintings of Francis Bacon the male body, at its most vulnerable, is at the centre of Bevan's work. The present painting, especially, suggests the legacy of Bacon, not just in the structuring and colour of the background but also in the way that the metallic arm of the chair points , knife-like, into the wrist of the subject, echoing Francis Bacon's use of hyperdermic syringe to pin his subject in space.