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
Here are 2 new Doppelganger paintings, the image on the left is a still life painting and on the right is the origional object.
Suspicious Minds - 52 x 29 cm - acrylic on board
Space Oddity - 52 x 29 cm - acrylic on board
October 14th, 2008
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
Here is a new press release from My gallery in Santa Fe ,Andreeva, regarding their recent successful sale of two of my paintings to The Smithsonian Institute in Washingto DC.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/Smithsonian/portraits/prweb1263134.htm
I’ll be posting some new work in the next 2 weeks or so.
September 11th, 2008
The Local council sent a letter to my mom’s house a few months ago informing her that she was entitled to free loft insulation to keep her bills down and help the environment which was very kind of them. Last week my brother and I spent a day at her house emptying the loft item by item through the small square hole in the ceiling. I suspected that there may be some of my old pictures up there but I had no recollection of the prolific output that had poured out. There were bags full of stuff and looking through them I could actually remember drawing some of them when I was 11. What the hell was going through my mind at that tender age I can’t quite grasp today but I’d certainly entered some kind of fantacy world. There seems to be a series of themes like monsters, ghosts, cars and rock stars.
Ken Dodd always says that we forget how to be children with the pressures of adulthood and leave that all behind. Picasso said something quite similar in that we are all born artists but we just get it knocked out of us… I’m sure they’re right. No matter how primitive and crap they look I can remember the pleasure and escapism that they brought in the tedium of half term and the long summer holidays.
August 10th, 2008
I will be doing a series of 3 talks about my work at the National Portrait Gallery next year in their excellent lecture theatre. They are scheduled for 15th, 16th, and 17th June 2009 in the morning of each day and will coincide with the opening of next years BP Portrait Awards.
The talks will focus upon all of the portraiture works that I have done from 1991 to present day. It will largely be in sequence from my early work in 1991 when I was working on my MA project and I will explain my thoughts, reasons and techniques behind each of the portraits. I will be discussing paintings and drawings and showing sequences depicting the build up/progress of a selection of my paintings. I would imagine that the talks will last around one and a half hours and are primarily aimed at school groups but I’m sure that they wouldn’t mind small individual groups attending too.
If you would like to know any more about these 3 events please contact Tanja Gangar, (Learning Manager at the NPG) on;
tgangar@npg.org.uk
August 10th, 2008
Here is a copy of my recent doppelganger featuring a Beatles single which looks like it’s been spun a few times. (See previous entry for an explanation of what these are about).
August 10th, 2008
Here’s the latest “Doppelganger” painting of an old Jimi Hendrix single from 1968. ( see 4 posts back for a description of what my thinking is behind this series).
July 5th, 2008
Here is the second picture of the fantastically aesthetic Bandana. He is a Hell’s angel that I know from The Rising Sun pub in Walsall, just down the road from me, which is a bikers pub that is run by the Hells Angels. I did a painting of him earlier in the year using dramatic chiaroscuro lighting with quite intense eyes looking out at the viewer. (please see earlier posts for description and photograph). Here I have done a drawing which is more detached in feel and he is in thought as we talked. This is quite a big drawing and is done in charcoal, graphite and carbon on paper.
July 5th, 2008
I went to the opening of the BP Awards last week and the announcement and dinner on Monday evening which was lovely. Ian Hislop announced the awards and gave a great speech…extremely funny infact. “I don’t know a lot about art…..no that’s it” was his opening gambit.
Overall I enjoyed the show but as many are now saying there is a little too much photorealism. I remember back in the mid 90’s when there was only the excellent Philip Harris and me doing it and and then the show was criticised for being too much like Freud and Euglow in style. It has certainly turned right around but those mid 90’s shows did seem more varied. I think it is the impact of digital photography over the past 5 years or so has made a big impact. It has absolutely revolutionised the way that I work and I love photography more than ever before now. The digital revolution is just wonderful and I think artists/ painters are captivated by the ease and absolute control you have with digital photography and it’s seemingly limitless possibilities that they want to incorporate it into their work. Certainly I never leave the house without a little snapper, even the cheapest little cameras give excellent quality results and I’m snapping and thinking all the time and the images are so disposable you can take as many pictures as you want and review them when you get home. Just incredible, and I think this is the reason that we are seeing so much photorealism at the moment, artists are just responding to modern technology, as I think they should.
My own personal favourites are Jason Walkers “Natalie” which I think should certainly have made the shortlist again, great use of pattern in a painting and beautifully muted tonal colour and the Mexican artist who came second in 2006 Raphael Rodriguez Cruz with a portrait of a woman with so much pain in her expression it almost reduces you to tears just looking at it - very powerful I think and nice to see Paul Benney again, one of the past heavyweights from the competition with his beautifully composed Californian looking swimming pool portrait.
June 22nd, 2008
