The Holburne Portrait Prize 2012

Mr Lindsay Clarke, author (acrylic on canvas)

This portrait of Lindsay Clarke is not an attempt to lay bare the character of an award-winning writer but rather to use his magnificent head to make a simple painting, in which no clues are given and the sitter’s gaze becomes irrelevant. It was accomplished after a single sitting, during which more time was spent on conversation, beer and cakes than on art. Emblem or icon; the result looks like it belongs on a postage stamp, a Roman coin or a banknote but somehow, Clarke’s character still seems to percolate through the inert, polymerised pigment.

To see the prize-winning portraits, click here.

A Few Portraits

Two paintings of footwear. One by by contemporary artist, Michael Taylor, the other by Vincent Van Gogh.

What is the difference between them?

$ 8,970,000,  you might say as both were sold at auction a year ago and the Van Gogh realised $ 9,000,000. But then, Taylor hasn't initiated a major art movement and changed the course of painting to boot (forgive the pun).

So what is the difference?

I show both images to my students and the Taylor instantly appeals. Alongside it, the Van Gogh appears dour and colourless. The Taylor, on the other hand is beautifully rendered and there are lots of little details to beguile the eye. In his careful treatment of the girl's shoes, the fabric of the chair, the carnations on the armrests, he shows us just how well he can paint - and there it ends; a contrived, yet nevertheless superb demonstration of the artist's skill.

Van Gogh, on the other hand, in painting less seems to reveal more of himself. His shoes constitute not such much a still-life as yet another portrait of the artist who regarded portraiture as the chief genre for modern painters. We feel as if we can deduce the personality who discarded them; we sense the labouring that has been done in them and the landscapes they have traversed. The person here is inferred, painted as it were, from the bottom up. Like all great works, the painting hints at something beyond the mere depiction of the objects concerned.

I bring a few old pairs of shoes to the art class and everyone is instantly gripped. They are such sad things; empty shells.  No props; I try to place them as if they've only just been discarded and it is strangely like having the ghost of the wearer in the room with us.

process cyan, magenta, yellow & black acrylic

neutral tint, sepia & burnt sienna watercolour

phthalo green, neutral tint & quinacridone violet watercolour

You Looking At Me?

Self, acrylic on canvas 40 x 40 cm

Ironic, that in trying to get out of the way of the painting and let the materials do the work, I should choose a self-portrait. The important thing here is that the person you see is not scowling at the viewer or at himself, but at the painting.

Bridging The Gap

This painting hangs in the corridor of the Birthing Unit at Frome Community Hospital. Continuing the theme of the Tree Of Life, which runs throughout the Hospital's decor, the challenge for me was to make a satisfactory composition from a single acorn on a 1.8 metre canvas.

Knowing that it's going to give me a lot of trouble, I buy two canvases and work on two paintings at once. My thinking is that I can play safe on one and takes risks on the other. The hospital will get whichever one that works. But what do I mean by 'works'?

As I begin to put acrylic onto each long canvas, I become aware of two things. First of all, painting is hard work. I'm full of admiration for the sheer physical achievement of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel - here was a man, after all, who could work his way through a slab of marble the size of a garden shed; secondly, there is an aching gap between the picture in my mind and the thing that is appearing in front of me.

After a couple of attempts, this appears. The acorn is suitably egg-like but I feel as if that is all I'm looking at. It's a riot of over-charged hues, too.

On the second canvas, I begin working with unnatural colours, so that I can concentrate more on the forms that I am creating. If I can just get the shapes to work on their own first of all, the colours can come later. When I look at this stage of the painting, now, I believe that a more courageous artist would have stopped right here. But at the time, I press on, because I'm pretty sure that the midwives and ancillary staff would rather look at emollient greens than hospital pink and meconium yellow.

A thin glaze of phthalo green makes the thing look more natural, but the life goes out of it in the process. I'm stuck. If I do any more, I'll cover up all those loose brush marks that are giving the painting its energy.

So I return to the first canvas.  The acorn is better proportioned but the shadowy greens are overwhelming. And there's another consideration. The entrance to the Unit will be to the left of the picture and I feel that in this orientation, the image is turning its back on the visitor.

And so, I return to the second canvas, yet again. I decide that if I'm to keep my colours consistent across such a long stretch of canvas, I either need to mix up huge dollops of pigment or underpaint the entire thing. Underpainting will soften my colours and homogenise them at the same time. I also like the idea of being able to concentrate on an image that has a massy, sculptural quality to it. This isn't to be an attempt at a real acorn, after all, but something more iconic. After the carbon black and titanium white underpainting, I apply thin glazes of phthalo green, hansa yellow and pryrole red to the canvas with a sponge. I mix the colours with equal parts water and gel medium to improve colour flow.

Once it's up on the wall, there are a few complaints:

It isn't big enough; there aren't enough leaves; there should be a branch; one of the leaves is painted incorrectly. 

There is also a suggestion for improving it:

A Lowry-esque stick figure pushing a baby buggy across that empty horizon.

Another aching gap opens up.