BP Portrait Award 2011

The 2011 BP Portrait Award opened at the National Portrait Gallery last week so with much excitement I hot-footed it up to London at the weekend to have a look at this year’s selection. The only problem with going to see a show when it’s just opened (or just before it finishes) is that it’s pretty crowded. There was much weaving and jostling as we dodged from one painting to another, all out of sequence and diving for a free space wherever there was one. Not how one wants to experience a show really but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

The BP Portrait Award is a prestigious annual competition which attracts entrants from all over the world. This year there were 2,372 submissions, which doesn’t sound that many actually when you consider that the competition has been going for 32 years and is therefore renowned throughout the art world here and abroad. Maybe portraiture just isn’t that popular these days.

55 works were selected; out of those, the prizes were awarded as follows:

First – Wim Heldens, Distracted

Second – Louis Smith, Holly

Third – Ian Cumberland, Just to Feel Normal

Young Artist Prize – Sertan Saltan, Mrs Cerna

Travel Award – Jo Fraser, Flora MacGregor

It’s disappointing that there doesn’t seem to be anything published about how the judges came to their decision. Apparently they select without knowing who the paintings are by to avoid any form of bias. These things are always so subjective though, and I find I rarely agree with the decisions. I really liked third prize winner Ian Cumberland’s Just to Feel Normal (take note of the size – 1500 x 1000 mm - not a small painting) but the first and second prize winning paintings, well… meh.

There were many other striking works in the show but one that particularly stood out for me (probably because it had a narrative element) was I could have been a contender by Wendy Elia (at the top of this post). There’s plenty going on in this painting which is an interesting take on the family portrait. It shows the artist herself with her children and grandchildren, some in photographs and postcards. The title adds another layer of meaning relating to her career as an artist and a woman in the art world.

I also liked David Carter at Home by Richard Brazier. The perspective was interesting as were the surroundings; I like the way the sculpture on the table echoes the pattern on the carpet. I also like the slightly uncomfortable way the subject is sitting. The diagonals of the legs disappearing out of the canvas give the feeling that maybe the subject was anxious to be off – even though he’s wearing his slippers!

There is the usual range of sizes from the gargantuan Holly with its imposing frame to the rather sweet and intimate Portrait of my father by Tomas Georgeson at just 300 x 230 mm. Smaller still are Matthew Schofield’s Six Decades, a series of six paintings each 10 cm square. Who said big is beautiful?

This year’s BP Portrait Award has the usual high standard of work and is well worth a look. If you’re interested in portraiture check it out.

Bridget Riley: Flashback

I had an interesting afternoon at Southampton City Art Gallery taking in the Bridget Riley exhibition, Bridget Riley: Flashback. The show covers work from the early 60s up to more or less present day and includes some of her preparatory studies. These, many of which were plotted out on graph paper, took me right back to my to my student days at art school when most of my images were created using mathematical systems. Whereas the other students could be seen carrying sketchbooks, I was usually brandishing a pad of graph paper. Very different from the kind of work I’m making now.

There was a selection of books on Riley for browsing at the exhibition; ten or twelve with her customary op art images on the front. I was immediately drawn to the one with a conte sketch of a woman on the front. It seems that Riley was an ardent portrtaitist and spent her three years at Goldsmiths drawing, drawing, drawing from life. Although her work changed direction dramatically in the early 60s when she began to produce the sort of images she is so well known for, this early experience of looking and drawing has been crucial to the way she has worked throughout her career.

'A great deal is involuntary. At best the drawing seems to unfold on the paper almost by itself, the hand being directly guided by the eye. Drawing is an exercise in looking: one finds out what can being seen and at the same time one finds oneself having to organise the visual and emotional information extracted. How to sort out and clarify this confusing wealth?'

Bridget Riley, From Life

Cataract 3, 1967

Less swilling, more forming

I’ve a lot of ideas about my artwork swilling around in my head at the moment; swilling but not forming properly, which probably means my work needs to change direction. Portraits seem to be where I’m at right now but I’m still very much drawn to narrative images. As The Undertaker’s Nuptials seems to have stalled (temporarily I hope), I’m thinking about how I can work narrative into straight portraiture. This has lead me to consider how we all have our own personal stories; who we are, where we’ve come from, what’s shaped us, what’s important to us, where we’re going and so on.

I’m reading an interesting book at the moment – Portraiture by Shearer West. How about this:

‘Portraits are not just likenesses but works of art that engage with ideas of identity as they are perceived, represented, and understood in different times and places. ‘Identity’ can encompass the character, personality, social standing, relationships, profession, age, and gender of the portrait subject. These qualities are not fixed but are expressive of the expectations and circumstances of the time the portrait was made. These aspects of identity cannot be reproduced, but they can only be suggested or evoked. Thus although portraits depict individuals, it is often the typical or conventional – rather than unique – qualities of the subject that are stressed by the artist, as demonstrated in Holbein’s George Gisze. Portraiture has also been subject to major changes in artistic practice and convention. Even though most portraits retain some degree of verisimilitude, they are nonetheless products of prevailing artistic fashions and favoured styles, techniques, and media. Portraiture is thus a vast art category that offers a rich range of engagements with social, psychological, and artistic practices and expectations.’

Less swilling, more forming.

Image: Hans Holbein the Younger, George Gisze, 1532

Portraiture

I did a four hour life drawing session yesterday; I’d forgotten how tiring that can be. It wasn’t quite what I’d expected as the model is a local burlesque artist and had one of her show outfits on most of the time (fishnet stockings aren’t the easiest thing to draw, so I didn’t try!). It was a useful exercise though, in that it made me sit down and draw what was in front of me for a concentrated period of time.

I’ve been asked by a local art society to lead a session on portraiture, specifically drawn portraits, which has made me think much more about what I do - and about the nature of portraiture. As the session will be fairly short, we’ll be concentrating on the traditional concept of a portrait, the head and face, but it can be so much more than that; the full figure, the things the subject has around him or her and the spaces he or she occupies. These can enrich the work by giving the viewer greater insight into the subject’s character and life. Maybe it’s not even necessary to have the person in the image at all. A few years ago I made a series of prints based on characters from Dickens’s Bleak House. One of these was entitled ‘Mr Jellyby’ and is in fact a ‘portrait’ of him. The man himself is absent from the image however.

‘"And how is your mama, Caddy?" said I.

"Why, I hear of her, Esther," replied Caddy, "through Pa, but I see very little of her. We are good friends, I am glad to say, but Ma thinks there is something absurd in my having married a dancing-master, and she is rather afraid of its extending to her."

It struck me that if Mrs. Jellyby had discharged her own natural duties and obligations before she swept the horizon with a telescope in search of others, she would have taken the best precautions against becoming absurd, but I need scarcely observe that I kept this to myself.

"And your papa, Caddy?"

"He comes here every evening," returned Caddy, "and is so fond of sitting in the corner there that it's a treat to see him."

Looking at the corner, I plainly perceived the mark of Mr. Jellyby's head against the wall. It was consolatory to know that he had found such a resting-place for it.’

This brings up an interesting question around figures in illustrative and narrative work. My niece posed for me as Ginger Nut, a character from a short story by Herman Mellville - Barleby the Scrivener. Is the result print therefore a portrait of Ginger Nut (a boy) or my niece? Or both? Where does the sitter end and the character begin?

Life class

2010 hasn’t started terribly well. January has been hijacked somewhat by inclement weather (sub-zero temperatures in the studio) and parental ill-health so I don’t feel as though the year is really underway yet. Creatively, I’ve been drifting somewhat – Woodwose was a bit of an aside, a detour from the main business of… what? I have many ideas in my head but can’t seem to get any of them to form coherently.

A friend of mine did a life drawing class recently which reminded me of how much I used to enjoy figure drawing (I’ve been concentrating more on portraiture of late). I dug out some of my old sketch books and spent an enjoyable hour looking through them, remembering various life classes and models (piercings in the most uncomfortable places!) and decided that I need to do some more. Most of my work tends to contain figures in one form or another so I think it would be useful to revisit life drawing and remind myself how the human form fits together. One of my art teachers at college used to say that in order for us to understand how clothes fitted over the human body and to be able to draw or paint them convincingly, we ought to study the human figure unclothed. So, I’ve booked myself on a session in a couple of weeks at local establishment The Art House; can’t wait!

Back in the studio

It’s been some time since my last blog entry – too long. That’s a clear indication that I’ve not been doing an awful lot creatively recently. Sometimes life just gets in the way.

Having said that, I had a good day at Red Hot Press yesterday, printing for an open studio event and preparing for a workshop I’m teaching in a couple of weeks.

I also started on a new plate; always an exciting thing. I want to concentrate on improving my aquatinting skills with a series of portraits (self and of those near to me) so the narrative skein of my work is on hold at the moment. I felt really inspired by the quality of the paintings selected for the BP Portrait Awards this year; wonderful technically, compositionally and atmospherically too – almost makes me want to paint! Human faces are an endless source of interest and inspiration so hopefully that will keep me busy for a while.

Back to wood engraving

Portraiture is my thing. Most of my prints have people in them, usually in a portraity way, so I thought I’d continue along those lines for my initial wood engravings. The ones I’ve made so far seem rather too ‘white line-ish’; not something I’m hugely keen on. Hence my next experiment which was an attempt to achieve a more ‘black line’ appearance.

Having drawn the image on the block, I cut both sides of the lines to leave a black line in the middle. At this stage, I proofed it to see what the lines would look like (see right); an interesting image itself.

After that, I continued to cut away until something that looked reasonable emerged (see below left). I think one is supposed to plan the images more carefully – I tend to just get the outline down, then cut in an instinctive way, making it up as I go along. I don’t think that’s how it’s meant to be done...