As the Portrait Awards were due to close, I visited the gallery to see that exhibition, as well as the general galleries.
Before entering the Portrait Awards, I found two paintings in very contrasting styles, both of which appealed to me.
The first is Dame Judi Dench by Alessandro Raho, a work of oil on canvas, painted in 2004 (99 1/4 in x 69 1/4 in)
This is a very large painting which makes the figure central, both physically and in terms of the presence it creates.
The colour in this painting is very muted and low key - the background is a solid, creamy off-white which gives the impression of the sitter (an artist) standing in a large, blank film set. The light is also very flat and there are very few shadows. The artist here has not used strong contrasts to create drama or a dark background to set the figure off.
The sitter is dressed smartly, but casually, in grey boots, brown trousers and a simple, stylish draped coat. There is no attempt to create an impression of grandeur, just showing a woman in her normal life, and normal clothes.
The coat is only fractionally darker than the background, which makes the areas of skin (hands and face) stand out even more from the background. These areas are further emphasized by some of the darkest areas of tone of the painting – the shadows around the cuffs and the upturned collar of the coat. The cool grey and blue tones of her white hair provide a cool contrast to the warmth of the rest of the painting and further accentuates her face.
The sitter is staring directly out of the painting, standing with one foot slightly forward and her arms by the side. This is a very bold, direct pose but one without vanity – to me the artist is simply saying - this is her, this is who she is – I don’t need a background, fancy clothes or embellishments to make a statement about this person”.
The painting technique is very smooth – there are no obvious colour contrasts or brushmarks in the paint. The only thing I was a little disappointed about was that, because the painting is so large, her face is high up on the wall and so I couldn’t get a clear look at the painting techniques and colours employed in the face.
The second, in the same room as the above, is Fiona Mary Shaw by Victoria Kate Russell, oil on canvas, 2002 (72 in x 48 in).
This painting employs a very different style to the Judi Dench portrait. In this portrait, the paint is central to the image, rather than secondary to it. The sitter is posed in a chair in plain white underwear (bra and underskirt), her knees apart, hands clasped in her lap with her face slightly upturned away from the viewer. The viewpoint here is a high one; we are not on her level, we are looking down slightly on her, foreshortening her lower legs and casting them into shadow. The strong highlights on the knees also draw the eye to the hands clasped between them. The sitter’s expression is ambiguous – she appears to be slightly smiling (most people look miserable when not!) but there is also an amused look in her eyes, as if she is trying not to laugh at someone/thing out of the view.
The image is much darker in tone – the colours used on the skin have been applied thickly with clearly defined brushstrokes. The colours have not been blended together but layered one on top of the other in flesh tones, in darker shades of browns, reds and terracotta. Olive green tones have also been used for the darker/shadow areas, especially below the knees.
The blurb says this portrait was painted from life, at the sitter’s home, over a period of three months. The artist appears to have brought along some old sheets or plain fabric, which she has draped around the floor and as a backdrop, although she has left an area to the right showing the wall behind.
The folds and creases in the fabric of the underskirt accentuate the pose – the fold drape heavily between her knees, creating the form of her thighs and drawing attention to the highlights on her knees.
The background fabric, while just being a plain white drape behind and cloth on the floor, has added to the perspective of the scene by creating movement and depth of shadow behind the sitter.
The similarity, I feel, with the Judi Dench portrait, is that the artist has taken a famous actress and presented her without any embellishment. By portraying her in plain white underwear, in a simple draped background, the artist is just showing the person, rather than the fame that surrounds her.
In the Portrait Awards themselves, I picked out a number of paintings. One general point I noted when going round the gallery was the number of paintings that were made on surfaces other than canvas – panel and linen – which I feel is so that the artist has a much smoother surface to work on, and so can create a smoother, more polished finished product.
The Dialects of Silence (Portrait of Michael Longley) by Colin Davidson, oil on linen (50’ x 50’).
This was probably my favorite portrait in the exhibition. Davidson says he strives to: ‘Capture the moment when the sitter is lost in their own thoughts’ and I think this really does come across in the portrait. In my scribbled notes from the day, I have written “paint pulled sideways from face against flat background gives impression of fleeting moment, as if sitter just turned their head away at the moment of capture”.
This portrait clearly is just about the face – the colour, texture and form of an older man with a grey beard. The background is very loose, a solid mid-green for the background, with the clothes, again a lighter green and a darker blue shirt, are very loosely suggested which helps to put more emphasis onto the face.
The paint here is very central to the image, and has been applied in a number of ways to give a textured effect: paint on the beard has been applied both heavily with a knife and brush, but has also been applied very thin and turpsy to allow the paint to run down, adding to the impression of a straggly beard. On the face the paint has been applied very thickly in places to add the surface texture of an older face, which has more texture, depth, wrinkles and creases than a younger face. Sgraffito has been used in the hair to scrape back into thick white paint. For the shadow area on the forehead, it appears that the artist has allowed the thicker brush strokes to dry and then rubbed a darker toned (dark olive green?) thin paint over this to allow the darker tone to settle into the creases which is very effective.
The one area where the artist has painted very smoothly and almost photo-realistically is the eyes. These are very smooth and delicately painted which serves to make them stand out strongly from the more textured areas surrounding them.
I looked on the artist’s website, and feel his style really works well when portraying the older face, and older men in particular. It is very helpful that, on his site, he shows study paintings and study drawings, as well as the finished pieces. On his site he has another portrait of Michael Longley, and the study drawing he created for it: http://colindavidson.com/index.php?do=drawings/michael-longley
Ben Ashton – Lindsay Lohan (oil on panel 11.5 x 7”)
This is a self-portrait that the artist created when “I was feeling particularly vacant and lacking inspiration. It was also an experiment in achieving a greater sense of depth”. I think it is the expression on the face in this one that makes it stand out! In many portraits (and even self-portraits) the face has a tension because you are holding a pose but in this painting, the face really is vacant – the eyes are half-open and staring, the face is relaxed and the jaw drooping to allow the mouth to be slightly open.
The background is mainly dark, as is his clothing, to put the emphasis firmly on the face which itself, although coloured, is fairly muted and lacking in colour – the skin is very pale and even quite grey in places, giving the impression of someone who has been inside for a long time. The paint finish is very smooth on this (it’s on panel) and very detailed as it is a small painting.
Antonio Barahona – Still Waiting (oil on canvas 31.5 x 23.5”)
The portrait is of the artist’s partner, Fátima. Barahona says: ‘I have tried to highlight her strong character and capture that defying gesture that somehow defines her.’
I particularly liked one because of the gesture of the sitter. Again, thinking about character in a portrait, this one really stands out because you just know that she is a very strong character (without reading the caption) and is not someone you would like to get on the wrong side of! The way the arms are folded behind her back, her direct stare and raised eyebrow, with the head leaning slightly forward - her whole pose screams “yes, and … just hurry up and get on with it”. The dark curly hair both frames the face and gives interesting negative space against the light blue of the window.
The painting itself is very cool, even with the bright red (which is on the cooler orange spectrum,) and the blue and grey background underscores this. The paint has been applied in clearly defined blocks and strokes and not particularly blended (mainly visible on the forehead and chin). The colours on her face are also on the cooler spectrum, with greens and blues used as shadows.
The other aspect of the exhibition I focused on were those paintings telling a story - the imagery and devices artists have used to depict either character or a particular moment in a person’s life.
The first of these is Bruised by Nathalie Beauvillain Scott, a work of oil on canvas 24x24”. This is painting of her son following both a car accident and an assault. He is shown naked from the chest up, with bruises around his eyes. In the background is a clock and a pinboard to which is attached a photo of her son as a small child, a photo of the car, a hospital note, a photo of a deep cut that has been stitched up and a postcard. The clock is shown at the time of his accident.
Swallow by Alexandra Gardner (oil on linen 16 x 12”). The portrait is of Laura, a professional hairdresser who sat for Gardner when her regular model was unavailable for two sittings. Gardner noticed Laura’s fascination with swallows using the motif in her jewellery and, unseen, tattoos. The portrait gradually became focused on the birds and the patterns they made rather than the sitter.
All Dressed up for Mam and Dad (self portrait by Peter Goodfellow) (oil and collage on canvas). This self-portrait includes a variety of collaged portraits of the artist’s parents. He says: ‘I wanted to record my parents’ lives when they were young and glamorous, before and up to the point I was born. I owe them so much and this way I carry them with me always.’ He has portrayed himself dressed in a dark suit and coat against a very dark background. The collaged photos are stuck into the lining of his coat which he is holding open (almost like a dodgy salesman selling stolen watches) to show the images of his parents. I think that by putting them into the lining and not on the outside, or in the background of the painting, he is showing the hidden nature of a person’s history and the fact that it is up to him whether he shares that with you or not.
Tessa and the clay heads by Ruth Murray (oil on canvas 67 x 55”). This is a portrait of the artist’s sister, sitting on the floor, surrounded (you could even say dominated) by six clay sculpted heads of her face.
The portrait is of Murray’s younger sister, Tessa, and is painted in the artist’s studio. Although she has been the subject of paintings before, Murray says: ‘This is her first real portrait – each clay sculpture represents a previous distortion of her image. This painting explores her feeling of objectification.’
You can see that the artist has practiced painting her sister a number of times, and she really doesn’t look happy about it! As well as being about objectification, I feel that this is also the artist’s expression of her own learning journey and learning how to paint a face (something I think every artist struggles with!). The artist has a very unusual technique in her painting – although it is in oils, it has been applied very plastically – the paint swirls everywhere, almost as if it has been poured onto the canvas and then swirled around – it is quite tiring on the eyes to look at close up.
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