Portraits of the Unseen

As Marc took Louise and I around the galleries in his infectiously passionate way which drew me into a more connected way of thinking about the collection – elements which jumped out and had a resonance for me were :

The life-cycle narrative portrait of the life of Sir Henry Unton, Elizabeth 1’s Ambassador (a tragic one, well worth reading about , it has all the elements of a medieval soap opera ..) it reminded me of Persian / Indian miniatures …and I managed later to catch the amazing temporary show of Indian miniatures, just in time..

The depiction of Unton as a baby, wrapped in red – apparently red was considered to be the colour for strength – then just a few centimeters away, his funeral procession and reflecting on the attitudes to death at that time, so much more present and possible at any moment. This opened a connection to the portrait of the melancholic John Evelyn, with his hand on a skull. Marc told us that X-Ray examination has shown that it was previously a medal of his wife, which has been painted over, perhaps when she had died ? I liked this idea of changing meanings through related objects and the X-Ray process, there is a feeling of the detective to a lot of the staff here, always trying to establish origin, timeline, likeness and how this can so easily become a fluid, elusive process as technology brings in new ways of reaching for the truth of an image.

Later I followed this thread to the Death folder in the Heinz archive, (strangely enough, right next to the ‘Diversity’ folder, which I was also on the inadvertent lookout but more on that later) which Robin -another infectiously passionate person with encyclopaedic knowledge at his fingertips – opened the way into. I came across some Memento Mori works which gripped me. Memento Mori means ‘Remember that you die’, I kind of admire the fact that people commissioned this kind of work in such contrast to our contemporary western desire to flee the imminent notion of dying as much as we can.

I did two sketches, one of ‘A lady’ by Heinrich Gerritz Pot and one of an Unknown Man – probably already dead, by an Unknown artist. The lady looked so fragile, as if she is staring into the eyes of death already, she is holding an egg timer and her spectacle…I was drawn to her immediately.

Sketching the unknown man – so beautiful and gaunt and peaceful – I had a flashback to the drawing a made of my grandfather when he was quite close to death in hospital over 12 years ago, so very still and peaceful. It was the only way I could keep hold of him, through my pen..I never showed it to anyone -apart from a shocked friend who told me they wished I had never done it – but I never forgot or regretted making it.

I also came across photos of Death masks in the archive – casts of the faces of the dead and got the connection to Mark Quinn’s ‘Self’ . I am always drawn to visiting this when I come, I think it’s the three dimensional, blood-red shock of it in amongst everything else which you could step through and the fact that it is an updateable work….I am wondering what John Evelyn would have made of it…

I remembered while writing this that the BP Portrait Award is opening soon and features a portrait by a painter called Daphne Todd of her dying mother….so that closes this thread and opens it to the future. Except to explain my particular attraction to the subject of death by sharing the memorial site of my mother, Parvin Azadeh Rieu, , from whom a lot of my inspiration inner resources have been drawn.

So here’s some of the ‘Ideas for the artwork’ section of my proposal:

‘Having worked extensively with combining both objects and texts to communicate individual narratives within installation contexts (see The Loom: from Text to Textile (2005), Crafting Space (2008) and The Gifts (2010), I would like to explore how the nine mother tongues of the groups involved – mediated by the tenth, English – may be used to presence the individuals within an artwork and communicate a sense of internal self that provides a deeper dimension to the idea of straight portraiture. This would involve written material generated with the collective and edited and could extend to recorded sound which could be integrated into the installation.

‘I would also like to use personal objects that can communicate aspects of personality and meaningful life experiences and introduce my cloth-wrapping practices into the process, to encourage a sense of ritual and connection between the participants and myself and form part of the piece. This idea of concealing objects in order to presence individual narratives relates to the overall concept of presencing the Unseen. Combining wrapped objects with texts, and/or using multi -lingual texts written and inscribed on the floor or onto surfaces that are then mirrored and multiplied to fill the room three-dimensionally would be a framework for the finished idea to be developed into.’

With these ideas in mind, Louise, the (excellent) project manager and I have spent a couple of days with three specialists at NPG (Claire, Marc and Robin) who know the collections well, attempting to find works which connect with the project and may interest the participants.

This is challenging when the focus is on representation as so much of the work (apart from the more contemporary work) is predominantly white, powerful men -and a few women, well mainly Elizabeth 1. In the Tudor rooms, we looked at everything but the faces for clues – since object wrapped in cloth and texts are going to be the main medium, the idea of ‘reading’ cloth to understand the value system and tastes of the sitter brought our focus on the sumptuous presence of Middle Eastern (predominantly Turkish) rugs in portraits like that of Catherine Parr (I love the way her hands sit and that long rosary of mini-portraits she holds) by Master John and Queen Elizabeth 1 wearing her cloth of gold…

More on this to come tomorow as i try to decipher my notes taken in the galleries, time for sleep right now..

So, to explain how I got to work on this commission (I love to deconstruct these things for others, I was always hungry for it myself and never got enough of the ‘how?’ factor) – I got an email in April from the Head of Participation at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG for short), Helen, who had seen my work, looked me up online and invited me in for an informal chat to discuss working together. I met with her and the Head of Education, and we had coffee over an informal presentation by me on my work and approach. Then Helen told me about the John Lyons commission which is a three year programme, of which this is the second.

Last year the lead artist was Faisal Abdu’Allah and the exhibition he and the collective produced was Chasing Mirrors in the Studio Galleries. They were now considering who they could work with this year, and did I have any ideas? I immediately felt an affinity with the project for many reasons but was taken aback at the possibility of making figurative work. Then looking more closely at what had been done and talking with Helen I realised they were very open to alternative approaches to portraiture, with the focus on identity and I understood why they had approached me.

I wandered through the galleries and then went away and thought about it, walked it through on the downs and was struck with an idea, so here are some extracts from the first part of my proposal, ‘Concept + context’ :

‘ My arts practice is very influenced by Sufi philosophy and the idea of presencing the inner world of the individual within a collective context. Given this, I am inspired by the concept of taking the contested prohibition of the representation of human and animal forms in the more traditional arts of Islam as a creative departure point for a contemporary work. I would do this in order explore both visual and non-visual means of alternative representation, enabling the participants of the project to depict portraits of the inner, or ‘Unseen’ self.

The idea of the ‘Unseen’ does not focus on the idea of disenfranchisement of minority groups, (though it may be read as such) but on presencing those aspects of self within all of us that are normally hidden or not perceived due to the predominance of figurative visual culture above all other forms of expression.

Creative solutions to the ideological restrictions within Islamic art mentioned above, which was rooted in the desire to discourage idolatry, create a sense of transcendent beauty and focus the individual on a singular, unified source of devotion, have resulted in centuries of sublime architectural and artistic practice which makes primary use of Arabic script through calligraphic quotations, geometrical forms and extraordinary tessellated mirroring systems (which I have had the experience of visiting in mosques and palaces in Iran).

I am interested in how ideology has shaped the way we represent and perceive the human form and how language can both express and conceal who we are as human beings within social contexts.’

This idea seemed to resonate with them and also excites me even though i don’t yet know what it is going to produce or how the collective will react to it ..a good place to start.

‘When you become uncomfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life’ Eckhart Tolle