Posts filed under 'Art for Sale'

PLUS ONE EXHIBITION – FINAL DAYS

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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

ANNOUNCEMENT- SOLO EXHIBITION IN LONDON

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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

NEW DRAWINGS

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Here are 2 new drawings which I have made. The first is called “Drifting” and the other if from my trip to Japan  and is called ” Shinjuku Sushi Bar”.

  I have continued working in line and tone as with the previous drawing, Harajuku Station. I like the way the line drawing in the background pushes out the figures/portrait  and gives them a  context which feels as real as a photograph in the sense that we believe in it but it is actually very crude.  I’m really quite excited by this development because I like the juxtaposition of pure realism and crude line work as one coherant image so I’ll be developing it further.

April 23rd, 2009

SUNDAY MORNING AT HARAJUKU STATION

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Every Sunday morning in Yoyogi Park in Harajuku hundreds of punks, greasers, costume playgangs and generally trendy young things congregate like peacocks and strut around in all their finery.

This is a drawing that I made recently of a guy that I met at Harajuku station. I wanted a really fresh and lively feel to the background because it was a travel project. I wanted it feel more spontaneous and immediate and juxtapose that to the very tight portrait drawing of the figure which gives the portrait a very fluid context. I was looking at it the other night and the spontaneous lines of the background suggested more memories to me of the actual experience than I got from looking at a photograph of Harajuku which was quite strange and certainly unexpected. I think perhaps your brain is wired differently to interpret a drawing and it fills in all of the gaps where as with a photograph it’s all presented to you in a totally objective manner.

click on the image to enlarge

 

March 19th, 2009

UNVEILED; National Portrait Gallery- Gala Mystery Postcards-3/3/09

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I made and entry on my blog in January saying that I had done 2 portraits on postcards after the NPG approached artists to do so for their fundraising gala on 3rd  March which I think they were selling for £200 . I can now reveal which 2 were mine.

They are about 8″ and the first is a B/W painting of a woman I met in Yoyogi Park in Tokyo and the second is a drawing of a dear friend of mine, Ken Billingham who also features in the next entry.

(If you click on the image they should enlarge)

 

March 5th, 2009

NEW GALLERY IN LONDON – PLUS ONE

 

Plus One Gallery in Chelsea are now representing me in their beautiful triple space gallery in London. They exhibit realist and photorealist works and will be dealing with my personal, none commissioned work -( for example these 4 Doppelganger paintings).  www.plusonegallery.com

Portrait commission requests are still delt with directly with me through this website and in America with Andreeva Portrait Commissions.

 

January 24th, 2009

ALLOTMENT DRAWING – “Ron in his Greenhouse”

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I had a walk around one of the many allotments in Walsall recently because I thought I’d meet some interesting looking people there. This is a portrait that I finished yesterday so it’s hot off the press. It’s a portrait called “Ron in his Greenhouse”

 Ron in his Greenhouse – charcoal, carbon and graphite on paper – 56cm x 49cm

 

October 14th, 2008

New Drawings – self portraits

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I’m fast approaching 40 now and I thought it was a good time to take a look at my face again. I’ve not really done that many self portraits before , mainly because I was busy doing commissions and other stuff and also because I never thought I had a very interesting face which makes quite a difference. Now that I’m nearly 40 my face has begun to age and seems more interesting to me now. There are wrinkles and sags starting to form and I find the aging process very interesting. A nice strong light helps too, dramatic chiaroscuro lighting enhances the face and detail. I think 40 is a good age to start and I think I may try and do a least one a year and follow Rembrandt’s example.

The first image features me and our dog Max. It was very spontaneous, I just saw Anne’s winter “Pixie hat” and decided to put it on and Max got in on the act and settled into the composition. I wanted dramatic lighting which traditionally would be accompanied by a dark background , pushing out the lighter detail, so often used by the old Italian master Caravaggio. I like the more clinical and modern white background which doesn’t detract from the 2 figures and focuses attention on me and Max, coupled with a tight edit. There is also a Richard Avedon feel to the portrait with the white background which wasn’t a concious decision but occured to me afterwards.

 The second self portrait again picks up on the datail in my face but is a more traditional chiaroscuo lit portrait with the darker background as my face emerges from the shadows. It doesn’t necessarily depict mt character, I look quite sinister in this portrait, which I can assure you that I’m not so I guess there is a sense of acting for the portrait or role play, again a traditional theme in portraiture.

 Both portraits are in charcoal, carbon and graphite. “Max and Andy” – ( after Max and Paddy)  is around A1 in size and the other portrait ” September 2008″ is around A4 in size.

September 30th, 2008

I Love my dog…

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Anne and myself went away for a break to Cornwall a few weeks ago and I took my sketchbook with me with no real intentions to do anything. I’ve been scrutinising and  looking at peoples faces almost daily for more than 15 years now and I got to thinking that over that period of time there must be some kind of visual record in my head that I can tap.  So, just as an experiment  I thought I’d try and see what kind of a head I could draw straight out of my head with nothing in front of me and this image grew over a period of hours almost entirely spontaneously I guess, though I was making narrative judgements along the way to give the head a context.

It looks a bit too much like caricature for me in retrospect which is not an avenue I really want to explore in any depth but it was a great little exercise for me to do, just to see what materialised. I put the typography on when I got back home using my printer. The title refers to a song that my wife introduced me to by Cat Stevens – ( currently Mr Yusuf Islam) and I just liked the idea of him being a Ramones fan.

April 20th, 2008

Leukaemia charity art auction in Birmingham

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I made this drawing very recently for a charity art auction in aid of Leukemia research at the Queen Elizabeths Hospital in Birmingham. It is a drawing of a Voodoo Doll that I brought in New Orleans who now sits on my shelf in the studio. I haven’t been cooking up  a voodoo hex on anybody, it’s just a lovely piece of magical iconography which to me is extremely aesthetically pleasing.

The main auction is on 20th May at  St Paul’s gallery in Birmingham and there will be a few days prior to this where you can take a look at the full body of work which will be auctioned.

 Dig deep and bid hard.

For more information about the event please take a look at the following website.

http://www.claa2008.com/

 

April 20th, 2008

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