My painting from my imagination. It tells a story. I have struggled with this work due to working in a completlely different way. Having no reference points except those in my head it is really a challenge. I don’t particular want to explain the painting, except to say that there is a narrative and I would hope to leave the viewer to make up their own mind to decide what the painting is about.
I have watched ‘The British Face’ several times now….a DVD about portraiture, in association with London’s National Portrait Gallery by the Irish actress and theate director Fiona Shaw. What a relevation!!. Shaw interviews painters such as Stuart Pearson Wright to Marc Quinn. From Francis Bacon to Freud. I feel portraits are still important….they are traces of the closeness and complexity between two people. I dont flatter the ego and vanity of the person I am painting. I have realised that its all about how I see the people I paint. The more paintings I do….I realise they reveal more about me than I could of ever had realised…
I have been looking at the British Portrait Awards. Looking through one of their exhibition brochures…I once again became fascinated by the differences in style and approach by the various artists. I was particularly impressed by Charlotte Harris…who went on to win the prestigious first prize. As the foreward for the exhibition catalog says “How do we judge a good portrait? By the likeness? By its technique? By the interest and richness of the painted surface? By a telling pose? It goes on to say…”Why, in the age of photography, film and digital images, are we still interested in painted portraits? …Our interest in the difference between photograph’s and paintings is the fascination with the different means of exciting recognition. What distinguishes painting from photography as a record of recognition it the artists personal choice of notation of their observation- and the arrangement of the marks with which they record it”I have done another portrait of the ‘ Man in a Blue Hat’…faces keep pulling me back..and perhaps I should accept that portraiture for now…is my motivation.
