The Completed portrait of Ronald. (42″x32″ acrylic on canvas)
I finally completed the portrait of Ronald shortly before Christmas Eve. It was a wonderful painting to do, just the kind of subject matter that I like but also because Ronald and his son were so nice too. Unfortunately though Ronald never got to see the final painting because he died 3 weeks after our initial sitting so the the whole commission is tinged with sadness.
Often in my portraits I am interested in peoples objects and posessions within their spaces and the way that they reflect and reinforce the sitters identity, (see Tony Benn and The Kinnock’s) but here it is a simpler , more direct composition, less cluttered and arranged and I think it has a more natural feel to it and it is really “about the man”. Perhaps the more we just reflect on the figure, without any of the dressings the closer we get to the actual depiction/reflection of the “the man”. Kind of like the the purity of an old blues recording by Skip James or the final albums of Johnny Cash where it’s just stripped down to the man and a guitar and the purity and fragility just rings through the under-production.
If you want to take a closer look just click on the image and it’ll come up a bit bigger.
January 2nd, 2008