Dressing Up series 2010
This series of portraits explores the ephemeral state of facade and emotional projection within a defined context - that of playing at "dressing up".
Make-believe and playing at dressing up are childhood mainstays. When isolated and examined they act as a means to highlight how we form identity and recognition status within a social group and at the same time they are unstable and transient.
My subjects / sitters are drawn from a wide pool of celebrities, art historical sources and family members.
This work was an attempt at bring together ideas raised by the cardboard construction series - that of delineated dress as form of identity, facade and projection of grandeur onto otherwise humble and meaningless material, with a forever shifting status and value.
While making this series, how the viewer evaluates these portraits was key - and like the ever shifting status of the cardboard constructions, these portraits value rose and fell - and I think they continue to fluctuate and shift.
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| "Jen", 2010 Graphite on paper |
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| "Hugh", 2010 Charcoal on paper. |
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| "Michael", 2010 Charcoal on paper |
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| "Seymour (After Holbein)", 2010 Oil Paint on Canvas |
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| "Wellington (After Goya)", 2010 Oil Paint on Canvas |
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| "Girl with the Oven Glove Hat (After Holbein)", 2010 Oil Paint on Canvas - DESTROYED |
"The Girl with the Oven Glove Hat (after Holbein)" painting was not an attempt to subvert Holbein's use of portrait. If it is a subversion of anything, then it's a subversion of my own contemporary sensibilities as an artist.
Through the portrait, it was my goal to explore the aspiration aspect, the facade of grandeur - but look closer and my version falls apart, its mawkish and contrived - the make-believe is shown for what it really is, when acted out by an adult... a delusion.
Shortly after painting it, I destroyed it - I saw the frailty of the painting as a weakness. I now wish I had not destroyed it - looking back on it, the power lies in the frailty of the painting - "the trying" and "the reaching" without success, opens out the portrait to reveal a truth infrequently seen in portraiture.
