Title: “Portrait
of Cheyne”
(Acrylic)
76x76cm
THE IDEA BEHIND THE
PAINTING
I have painted several members of my
family over my art career. Although I
prefer to paint abstract paintings, I don’t approach a portrait in that
way. In fact I am very representative
when it comes to portraits. The reason
for this is that I want to represent each individual as I literally “see”
them. If I was to represent them abstractly,
there would be a different interpretation of the subject by each different
viewer. My family members are important
and precious to me and I want them represented in an unequivocal way. A portrait painter has the power to portray
their subject in a favourable or unfavourable light – I do not want to cast
good or bad impressions on my family.
Therefore I paint them literally from a photo. I can see some people throw up their hands
and exclaim “A photograph!” but get over it, I know my family as well as anyone
and that is the most convenient way of replicating their image in this busy
world.
Artistic techniques
used in the painting:
I chose
acrylics for Cheyne’s portrait. Her
personality is best reflected in a medium that yields strong colours.
Cheyne has
blue eyes. At some stage she had an item
of clothing that looked particularly good on her. It was a tee-shirt that parodied the super
hero “Superman”. The blue colour of that
tee-shirt was very flattering and brought out the colour of her eyes. I accurately matched that colour for the
background of this painting. I
deliberately left a white area – a space into which she could evolve and
grow. Also the white area balances the
overall composition.
Western
artists throughout the ages have used grids to transfer images from one surface
to another larger surface. Also painters
have over hundreds of years used projection devices (camera obscura was
discovered as far back as the 4th century BC). Leonardo and Vermeer both have been thought to
use these devices from time to time to get an exact image onto another surface.
Most of the very large life-like
portraits that are popular in recent times have been done with projectors.
I used a grid
to scale up Cheyne’s image onto the canvas.
The photo from which the portrait was taken was a very free and relaxed
representation of her taken at the beach.
It captures a playful, happy aspect of her personality.
We all
possess an “internalized image” of ourselves formed from experiences we have
had throught out our life. I have known
people who are extremely beautiful who do not believe that they are so. It is important for me when I do a portrait
to represent that person as they are and not in the abstract because they may
interpret this abstraction as a negative image whereas I might be conveying
something completely different. This is
why I am scrupulous in getting a “true” likeness of my subject. The photo from which I take a portrait also
provides what I want to depict. It is
not selected at random but reflects certain aspects of the subject’s
personality that I want represented in the portrait.
I love the
freedom in which Julian Freud (the famous British artist whose paintings I
greatly admire) paints but isn’t each portrait which he produces also a reflection
of him? Each artist approaches their
artwork in different ways and I have just explained the way I choose to
approach the portraits I do of my family.
Perhaps at a future time I will become more abstract in my approach -
time will tell.
.
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