JOIN JANE CONTINUING TO MAKE SENSE OF ART
And this month Jane is looking at award winning portraits at The National Portrait Gallery.
‘The Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award’ is one of the most important platforms for contemporary portrait painters and is an annual exhibition at The National Portrait Gallery in London. This year it included 46 portraits which explored many approaches to this genre – classical and contemporary.
The most captivating of the 46 for me followed a rather unexpected and poignant theme – 6 portraits of women towards the end of their lives – mothers, grandmothers and close friends of the artists. These are not glamorous paintings – they are gritty, thoughtful and rather sad pieces showing faces in the throes of dementia, grief and loneliness, faces that give you the impression of long, possibly hard lives that will shortly be left behind.
The painting above was my favourite in the exhibition – ‘Smaller World’ by Paul Wright. It is an oil painting of his 81 year old mother who has Alzheimer’s disease. She is surrounded by half formed objects from her past – what must have been a very busy past! Some of the objects are swirling around her – maybe a jumble of memories. I found this painting absolutely memorising – the more I looked, the more I saw.
In contrast, ‘Claire’ by Simon Watkins, again a painting of a lady with Alzheimer’s, is much more minimalist. Apparently he painted her whilst she was listening to music – in a moment of inner calm. She comes across as a small, rather vulnerable figure in a spacious, momentarily calm environment.
‘Memories’ (above) by Martyn Harris, is a painting of Gillian, a lady the artist befriended whilst he was doing a residency at The Art Yard Gallery. Loneliness and sorrow come out very strongly for me – and the weight of time. This painting was the third prize winner in the competition.
‘My Mother on her Birthday, the Day After my Father’s Funeral’ by Cassandra Mahoney – well just the title got me! The desolation and sense of loss comes across in a very raw way. There is little detail in the mother’s face – but it’s more than enough for us to feel her abject grief. However I got the strong feeling of life carrying on – she is wearing her apron – she has still done her chores and there is a birthday to celebrate – the candle bringing a glimmer of hope to the portrait.
‘The Artist’s Mother’ by Mick McNicholas is oil on aluminium which gives the painting an interesting glow. The portrait is the result of painting his 91 year old mother at every visit aware that their time was short. He uses a large colour palette – surrounding her in colour although she wears black. It feels like a very loving tribute to his mother.
And finally below you will see the first prize winner – ‘A Life Lived’ by Moira Cameron. This is a self portrait, and a reworking of a portrait that Moira Cameron did at art school. She says ‘The lines on my face, the subtle shadows, tell a story of time passing, of laughter and worry, of a life fully experienced’.
I won’t forget these 6 faces for a very long time. How moving that the artists have captured the reality of each and every situation of the sitters so perfectly, to make us stop and stare. leading us to reflect on these long lives as well as to empathise with the harsh realities of old age facing us all. The power of art!
