Anne and me went to the Directors annual reception a few weeks ago at the NPG. Andrew Marr off the telly made a speech and I snapped him here with Anne. The Irving Penn exhibition was also on at the NPG that night, I wasn’t too familiar with his photographs until I saw them and recognised quite a lot. I love B/W photography so much and it very often feeds into my own work. Stand out portraits for me were Truman Capote, Giacometti, Yves Saint Laurent and Tennessee Williams – what portrait artist wouldn’t want to capture those guys.
We were also invted to The Royal Opera House to see Carmen by BP which was a great evening because I’d never been before and it was such a beautiful building. It was so baroque and swirling and gold which kind of also gave it a strangely kitsch feel too and the stage surround reminded me of the old clips of Max Miller in the music halls of the 1950’s . Sorry if if it sounds like an exercise in bragging , (I can assure you that day to day life in the Black country is very different) but we were in the Royal Box reception area, super posh, and just off there is the Queens toilet which was quite a sight to behold.
June 26th, 2010
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
I was in London for the day yesterday for the launch of a new web based link up for BP artists. The BP Portrait Award has been going for over 20 years now so a lot of artists have passed through during that time. Someone’s had a great idea at the gallery to get everybody together in a web based networking set up. So basically it was a bit of a jolly lat night at the NPG, meeting up with old friends from years ago to present day. In fact, a lot of us are already in touch already but there ids so much scope for linking up and liaising with other artists…..very exciting. It’s also linked up with the Olympic funding and workshops are going to be set up to encourage the youngsters.
I met Philip Harris and Mike Gaskell earlier on in the day and we had lots of coffee and an appauling lunch in soho, ( soup of the day… economy tinned tomato soup, carefully opened out of view with three slices of courgette…yummy and a bargain at £4.00) But we managed to catch up and went to see some exhibitions around town. After more coffee we went to the NPG and met up with a lot of the previous winners , even going back to when JPS sponsored it. Humphrey Ocean and Tai Shan-Shierenburg who won that one then the BP winners, Phil Harris, Peter Edwards, Ishbel Myerscough, Stuart Pearson – Wright, James Lloyd, Craig Wylie and shortlisted artists and travel award winners Joel Ely and Annie-the lovely couple back together again, David Hancock and his partner , Kevin Cunningham who I haven’t seen for years and Brendan Kelley ( who amazingly hasn’t won it yet) and lots of others I’ve missed out.
Good luck for this year Mr. Gaskell.
May 18th, 2010
click on the image to enlarge
May 12th, 2010
Click on the image for larger version
May 4th, 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
Next Posts
Previous Posts
