I was interested to see the new portrait of Princes William and Harry which was unveiled at the NPG last week. I was shortlisted for this portrait some years ago along with about 3 other artists I seem to remember. I was quite excited at the time I recall but the gallery went for a number of meetings with the Princes and their representatives at Clerence House and The Princes chose Nicky Philipps in the end. I suspect I was at the lower end of the gene pool. I think someone like Nicky was a good choice though or perhaps someone like the excellent Paul Benney. I know 4 artists who have done royal portraits , all of whom I consider to be very good figurative painters and all of them have had real problems with the commissions resulting in being ridiculed in the tabloid press or paid off by the Royals because they didn’t like their depictions. I think this recent portrait was always going to and extremely conservative / formal portrait whoever painted it because they hadto be depicted in uniform and I’m sure that the Royals would be keen that it was an exercise in flattery ,which this portrait is which is and why I think Philipps or Benney would have been realy good choices for it rather than me.
January 11th, 2010
I was really sad that Simon Mayo had left Radio 5 to do the drivetime slot on Radio 2 ( Chris Evans’ old slot). I’ve listened to Simon’s weekday show almost every afternoon that I have been painting over the past 8 years and he just fits like a comfortable cardigan and slippers while I’m painting. To my mind the most professional and researched broadcaster on radio and never embarrasing. I suspct that he didn’t fancy the move to Manchester from London when Radio 5 relocates in a few years. I listened in to a few of his fill in shows for Evans and he seemed a little too “up” compared to his presentation on Five Live. I’m not sure he’s quite right for the drive time slot so please feel free to come back to Five Live wheneever you want Simon. So next time you take a look at one of my pictures from the last 8 years you might just see a little bit of Mayo in there.
December 29th, 2009
It’s been 10 years since Te New Art Gallery, Walsall opened its doors to the public and they’re having a party exhibition to celebrate. Should be a pretty cool series of events I think and an accompanying exhibition with some pretty big name artits in like Peter Blake, Martin Creed, Gilbert and George, Chris Ofili, Paula Rego, Sam Taylor Wood, Juergen Teller and Gavin Turk. I’ve got a piece in the show too and they’ve asked all the artists to do a birthday card for the gallery which will also be exhibited alongside the rest of the Party themed work. Here is my card which is a “Party Tape”, the kind of thing we used to take to house parties back in the student days or give to people you really liked. I think there is quite a growing nostalgia for party tapes in the digital age.
( Click on the image for a closer look at the track listing)
December 29th, 2009
I went for a kind of “works do” with some artist friends - ( most from the Plus One Gallery) just before Christmas. It’s the kind of year when artists miss out on office parties because we work generally in isolation which is why Simon has set up a festive piss up. We went around the German Market by the town hall which has really taken off and I think is now the biggest in Europe. It’s a great festive atmosphere and a boozy time was had by all. (Chris, Simon, Tom, Steve and me)
December 29th, 2009
I’m currently working on a portrait commission of the fantacy fiction author Alan Garner OBE for the Grosvenor Museum in Chester which has come about thanks to a grant from the Victoria and Albert museum in London. I’ve been up to visit Alan and his wife at their wonderful old cottage near to Jodderal Bank - (is that how you spell it?) He’s famous for many books like The Wierdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath and som o his works have been turned into TV shows. There’s more information on Alan at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Garner and http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/g/alan-garner/
Their cottage is just fantastic, almost like a Hobbits house with log burners, broken tiled floors, anchient furniture , old doors and books and lots of archaeological findings from the grounds of the cottage. There’s huge potemntial in this portrait so I’m really enjoying it. I’m not sure about revealing updates , I’ll haveto check when it’s ok to post a few , but this is my current project. ( the photo is just a photo, not my portrait of him)
December 29th, 2009
Here’s a recent drawing that I made of a friend of the son of a friend of my wife. It’s a portrait of Sean aged 17. He’s got quite an interesting face, I think a little like a young Damon Albarn, although I know that Sean isn’t keen on that comparison , though he is into really great music for someone quite young, he’s certainly done his research. Anyway, I wanted to make a picture of somebody who was of an age / juncture that their life was at a certain crossroads so I used a background drawing New Street train station in Birmingham as a visual metaphor for this “crossroads”, an area which we were both familiar with. I juxtaposed this with the line drawing of Selfridges as an iconic symbol of Birmingham. It’s quite a serious loking portrait which I tend to go for and I think the lighting / modelling on Sean’s face adds to the atmosphere.
December 29th, 2009
Here’s the last picture that I did for the show. It’s a portrait of somebody that I met in Times Square about 5 years ago. I wanted to try the loose background technique to give the portrait a context and I think city scenes work particularly well so I combined the two. This one is in acrylic and it’s painted on MDF board which I cut into a circle with a jigsaw. Portraits can work extremely well in a circular format or can also look a little kitsch but hopefully it captures something of the meeting 5 years ago. I was particularly pleased with the clapped out NY cab to the right of the image. This piece is also in the show at Plus One Gallery which runs until Saturday 7th November.
November 5th, 2009
It’s been a week or two since I blogged because Anne and myself have recently moved and my internet has been down for 2 weeks which was both liberating and ostracising. Anyway, back up and running now so I just wanted to thank everybody that came to the opening night of my show back in October, I know that many of you travelled quite a long distance to come to the opening so I really appreciate all of your efforts because it’s quite easy to park your arse infront of the TV. Thanks also for Plus One for staging the exhibition in their beautiful Chelsea gallery and all the help and support they gave me, I’m delighted to be in their stable.
Here’s a few shots of the opening night.
November 5th, 2009
I will be having a solo exhibition in London at the Plus One Gallery in Chelsea. The Private View will be on the evening of Tuesday 13th October and the exhibition will run until 7th November 2009.
It will be a portrait based exhibition featuring new and recent portraits from America and Japan and a few British portraits too.
Click on the image for more details about the exhibition.
if you would like more information please contact me on andrew@andrewtift.co.uk or the gallery on info@plusonegallery.com
September 16th, 2009
Following on from the series of Harajuku Punks that I did before , way back in 1995 here is a more recent description. The coat she was wearing was everywhere amongst Tokyo’s youth culture late last year but knowing how transient and disposable Japanese society is they are probably all in the bin now.
It’s acrylic on canvas
click on the image for a larger view
September 16th, 2009
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