52 Portraits painted from life in 52 weeks
Private view 16 June 2023
Photo: Karen Overend
"'I like it because I wasn't prepared to"
Photo: Becca Robinson
What’s the idea behind this?
In mid-2022 I set myself the achievable challenge of one portrait a week over a year which I would then exhibit. Each one would be completed strictly within a two-hour sitting.
How confident did you feel?
I felt confident I could find 52 people I knew to sit for me, and I imagined everyone would be known to me. But it grew of its own accord, and strangers offered to sit for me, which was a surprise. It is after all a very close and personal experience. And some people I really wanted to paint didn’t want to sit for me.
Did they get better each time?
They are shown here in the sequence painted. They don’t necessarily get better each time. There are just highs and lows, and there will always be things I could have done better. It’s a sequence, a path travelled.
Does it make a difference if you know your sitters?
Many sitters I’ve known for years, others I’d never met before, which made it harder to judge if I’d conveyed anything of their identity. Working on a portrait is an intense relationship where the artist is as much observed as the sitter. I am well aware that many sitters observed a rollercoaster of panic, my change in energy as time elapsed, followed by a desperate ‘I just have to stop.’
How did your sitters find the experience?
I very much wanted some insight into my sitters so I asked them each to answer a set of questions before we started. I didn’t dare read them till afterwards…
- How do you feel about how you look?
- How do you feel today?
- Are you worried?
- Do you want me to make you look ‘good’?
- What do you mean by ‘good’?
- Why did you agree to sit for me?
- Is there anything else you want to tell me?
The portraits were exhibited in Gallery 6 Scarborough in July 2023 and again in 2024 as the inaugural exhibition in Scarborough Library’s new Community Space.
Following sales made, I’ve painted a further 6 portraits to keep a constant number of 52 available at any one time. It’s rather like a ‘pot on the boil’ so that I have an exhibition ready at the drop of a hat.