Posts filed under 'New Work'
Although I work in portraiture I am slightly obsessed with objects too and often combine the two in one portrait, see The Kinnocks or my recent portrait od Alan Garner. I’m also a big muso and I love doing these little paintings of old records which have their own character and the disciplined objectivity which I’m working towards.
I would add that I’m not a Whan fan, this was a commission - although I do have a soft spot / guilty pleasure for this particular song. I particularly like the way fashion defines decades , which is often evident in portraiture. The cover photo of “George and Andrew” looks like the photographs you used to get in the windows and on the walls barber shops in the 1980’s and it reminds me of the days when I used to have hair and visited the barbers in the Black Country with my Dad and brother as a school boy.
Click on the image to enlarge
June 26th, 2010
Here is another portrait of Bandana who, to me, is endlessly fascinating. This was from the final stages of the sitting which I had with him and as the evening went on in the pub he / we had a few beers and I think you can see that in his expression in this depiction. Cheers Bandana .
June 26th, 2010
Here’s a picture of a scene in a sushi bar in Tokyo. It’s in the Kabaconichi district which is similar to Soho in London and has as very dodgy feel to it in the same way that soho has, although it is run by the Yakusa ( mafia). I did another version last year in the same sushi bar but this is from a different angle and you can actually see the figures faces.
It’s in the rather more immediate drawing style which I have been developing , basically just giving the figures or portraits a context or feel of an environment while focusing most interest on the figures
June 26th, 2010
Here is the result of the past 4 months of work. It’s Alan sitting in what I named “The Writers Room”. He sits in this room to write all of his books and always spends most of the time sitting in his lovely old rocking chair which was his Grandmothers. It’s a great room , full of all his stuff and little narrative objects which reflect and reinforce his identity. I was particularly concious not to set anything up in this portrait. I wanted it to be absolutely natural and exactly as it was. There’s an old 80’s Hi-Fi which I really didn’t want to paint because it’s such an ugly object and I hinted at Alan to remove it ( this would have ben the only concession) - but he said there’s too much wire at the back , it’s staying , and in many ways I’m glad it did because it’s as much a part of the room as everything else. I loved painting the cauldron , beautiful sculptural shapeand the glove looks like there is somebody trying to crawl thrir way out. The landscape and local archaeology is extremely important to Alan’s books so the window was very significant. I was interested about the grid structure that archaeologists use which is similar to my roughs. I loved painting the old tiles too, they really gave the space a shape. I wanted the angles of the room to be a bit crazy because it was such an anchient old cottage that they lived in called “Toad Hall” that it was moving and subsiding all over the place. He was a great sitter for me because he had no vanity at all, an similarly to the unveiling of Tony Benn’s portrait he was only really interested in the objects and the litle stories that they held and really didn’t give a dam about his depiction. Attached to Toad Hall is an old timber framed building called “The Medicine House” which was destined for demolitian in the early 70’s but Alan saved it and had it moved timber by timber and erected next to Toad Hall. It’s got a wonderful huge chimney right in the middle and really is the obvious setting for a portrait because of the drama or th space but I found the writers room to be infinitely more interesting and apt for Alan.
For a larger view of the portrait click on the image and it should enlarge.
For more information about Alan see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Garner
Thanks to the V&A for funding this project.
May 4th, 2010
The unveiling of my portrait of Alan Garner will be towards the end of April. I can’t show it in full yet but here’s another little taster. I’ll post the full image on 30th April.
April 6th, 2010
Here’s a little taster of my portrait of Alan Garner. I can’t reveal it yet until the unveiling in April but it gives a litle fel for the portrait. It is a full length portrait of Alan in colour , acrylic on canvas and he is set in is wonderful room , which I call “the writers room” and he’s sitting on the chair which he sits on to write all of his books. Alan, his wife and the curator from the Grosvenor Museum in Chester came up last wek and semed to really like it. I’ve also made a video diary throughout the painting. I’ll be posyinf the finished portrait in late April.
March 1st, 2010
Here’s a recent portrait coimmission that I did of a lovely guy caled Ben. He’s been travelling around South America for the past 10 months or so and getting into a series of scrapes en route . We had the sittings before he went and I paintied the portrait while he was away. The composition is influenced by the wonderful photographer Richard Avedon who I have always admired. I wanted the weight of the composition to be to the right of the painting and he’s almost leaning on the edge of the picture.
March 1st, 2010
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’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
Previous Posts
