Press Release

Artists practice -

My personal practice this year has been portraits. It will, most likely, always be portraits. I love the face and the detail in every feature. This year I have tried something a bit different to what I normally paint, something with a bit more meaning and something that pushed my hand. At the start of the year I was still halfway between what I had been doing last year and some ideas that were floating around in my brain that I could never really settle on. And then suddenly out of nowhere, an idea struck. And I think it was something that had been there for a while and I had never really thought it would turn into anything good. However, what this Identity project did entail was being able to push myself to paint clothes. I hate fabric and having to get textures right, probably because it means I'm going to have to put even more work into a piece.

After creating my triptych I decided to, again, try something a little bit different and something that pushed my skills. I began using oil paints for the first time in some experimentation and found that they were very nice to work with. I changed my idea onto the homeless and the issue surrounding the homeless and lonely at Christmas time. When I researched artists I came across a lot of photographs of the homeless in black and white rather than colour, so when I began painting my third portrait of this idea I changed into monotones and scaled up. I really enjoyed painting this portrait especially, I think it was because I finally got a likeness of myself (in my eyes) for the first time. When you paint yourself I think you will either feel self conscious or confident depending on your personality, which in my case is the former. However, I think this added to my portraits, given them an awkward quality that personalises my work.

Continuing through the Christmas break, juggling work and art, I finished my wreath piece which again challenged me in a different way. Usually I avoid anything that isn't a face, yet I found this painting quite theraputic rather than time consuming. And now that I'm back in the studio my ideas have taken another turn, to other people's identities, rather than my own or the masses. So hopefully that will help me find out where my art practice is going into thw Summer and next year.

Subject and ideas -

Identity was a very important message I wanted to convey through my portraits this year. I think it was a personal issue I wanted to get across initially but then it travelled and changed into an idea that others could take into their own minds and change how they perceived themselves and others.

Homelessness became another subject I focused on. I wanted to put myself into that position rather than feeling like I had to specifically choose a homeless person to paint. I felt like that was the only way I could try not to discriminate.

Pushing on, the idea that is flowing now is the identity of others; friends, family, maybe even strangers.

Methodology -

I work slowly, and mainly in my own mind. I have a lot of ideas that rarely see the light of day, probably because I think they're not good enough or that no one other than myself will find them of any interest. I am a painter mainly (acrylic and oils), but have been experimenting with other forms of medium like charcoal and some digital editing. I consider other forms of working as somewhat of a break from my studio practice.

Artist context -

Barnaby Whitfield and Lee Jeffries are two of the main artists I have looked at during these past few weeks. However, earlier in the module I looked at artists such as Frida Kahlo, John Currin, Grant Wood and Mark Wallinger. I looked into these artists because they have a way of including the clothes and the figure together perfectly, and Wallinger in particular inspired my homeless paintings.

Jeffries aas inspired my homeless ideas, except he is a photographer and not a painter.

And Whitfield is my inspiration for some future work, although he mainly uses pastels he is such a brilliant artist by the way he incorporates his props and backgrounds with the portraits and choice of colours.

Tony

Little deaths all the same