Semblance

Winter of 2021 was spent creating 5 portraits of a young boy for a 16mm film short film by Freddy Ray called ‘Semblance’. The brief was broad – they just had to be in increasing states of emotional upset, and consistent with the kind of painting being created around the turn of the 20th Century. I took as my inspiration the Italian painter Antonio Mancini, whom John Singer Sargent admired greatly. His paintings of children stop you in your tracks with their direct and unnerving. gaze. I loved the challenge and learned so much that I can deploy future paintings. It’s a while since I’ve done a portrait and the commission of 5 meant there was not time to prevaricate. The canvasses, of varying sizes, were stretched using rough cotton, rather than portrait linen which gave them a rustic feel. They were painted in oils, using techniques and materials consistent with the period.

What I hadn’t truly appreciated was that one canvas would have to be set alight, using a candle. That’s a true test. Knowing this, I purposely took a couple of the paintings to a less finished state. The other challenge was it was the middle of winter with the outside and inside temperature at -2 degrees c. It wasn’t quite Leo de Caprio filming ‘The Revenant’, but needless to say a lot of tea was consumed.