The Private Pictures: Portrait and Figurative

In 2015 I immersed myself deeply into an investigation of the painted portrait and human figure. This had been my initial impulse for going to art school back in 1984 (where I unfortunately received very little of the training I had hope for). I could draw reasonably well, but I sensed that something in my foundational art education was missing.

Undertaking one of the most challenging subjects for a painter has been exhilarating and humbling; as one should, I attended life-drawing sessions, asked friends to sit for me, scoured the great museums and the Internet and artbooks for clues to finding out “how the Old Masters did it”.

I undertook a series of self-portraits because I am always available. I created a small portrait drawing project of rendering in pencil some of the people I met while travelling in Paris. I visited the Kupfersticht Kabinett in Berlin and made a study of an Adolph Von Menzel pencil drawing in their archive, a fantastically abstract image of a man’s back. I had discovered what the writer Michael Fried called his “Private Pictures”, a separate body of work from his history paintings.

Degas is reputed to have called Menzel “the greatest living master”.

I attended workshops with other artists (thanks Justin Ogilvie and Alex Tsavaras), and through all of this process I have learned somewhat to articulate what I have learned and then share my discoveries with my students.

There are many approaches to seeing and mixing flesh-tones (such as the Zorn palette and beyond), and I am grateful to observe that my perception has expanded to see colour at a completely different level. I can now feel more relaxed and playful about solving painterly colour problems.

Fortunately for an artist, the journey never ends. It just gets richer.