I was deeply moved by Asif Kapadia’s 2019 documentary film Diego Maradona and watched it twice. I wanted to capture the 130 minute film in three prints. My concept was to have a print that captured Diego, the sensitive boy from the slums, only happy kicking a ball; secondly a print that fixed Maradona the personality Diego created to cope with stress but who was an arrogant cocaine addict as well as a brilliant footballer; and finally Diego Maradona as he is now.

Like the film I didn’t want to make judgement but present his life to the audience and let them write the narrative of Maradona’s life. Unlike the film however, I wanted to show the old Maradona in the studio on a talk show as being the least real of all the prints, he’s telling his own narrative in full make up under lights (how he’s justifies his life to himself) for entertainment. I wanted to flag this as being the most suspect of the three prints so that the audience didn’t accept it as ‘his real story’ and instead wrote their own, or looked at multiple interpretations.

Instructions and my initial thoughts… Produce three monotype portraits and arrange (and photograph) them in different ways.

Use techniques that work the best to create the type of self-portrait or portrait images that you want. So I have to link technique and medium to outcome as Diana said in feedback to Part 2.

I might also create a series with a themed link so they work as a whole as well as individually. So I have to find a meaning that both links the monotypes and motivates me. The importance of my connection to the exercise/Assignment came up in feedback to Part 2.

I also have to remember not to micro plan (Diana’s advice) and to let the painting evolve rather than straight jacket a meaning into it. Rather to inform myself, have a general intent, free myself up for the painting… then revisit it to tweak out the meaning.

Also – thanks Diana – I need to experiment before I launch in so am going to try and do five of each… pick which is most appealing/works best… try and do another round of printing… re-assess and then do the finished prints.

The Assignment

Apart from Yuko Nasu I found all the artists I researched enlightening and appealing in their own way.

I also have to remember not to micro plan (Diana’s advice) and to let the painting evolve rather than straight jacket a meaning into it. Rather to inform myself, have a general intent, free myself up for the painting… then revisit it to tweak out the meaning.

Also – thanks Diana – I need to experiment before I launch in so am going to try and do five of each… pick which is most appealing/works best… try and do another round of printing… re-assess and then do the finished prints.

My ideas: 

1. Conceptual linkage… Annie Kevans is the main inspiration.

Three prints of Diego Maradona (I just saw the film) – the link is they are all of the same person, but he was two people for most of his life: Diago the scared sensitive slum boy and Maradona the preening fearless superstar he invented to cope with fame… he also had a mental collapse, careered downward into drugs, lost his career and became a fat old deposed demigod living off his myth. The most moving clip for me was when he was coaching a women’s team (so fat he could barely run) and he dribbled the ball and scored – a flash of glee glee chased across his face – I couldn’t tell if it was Diego or Maradona but when put against his goals at the world cup, perhaps, the greatest footballer of all time it was high pathos.

So, and this also references Luc Tyman’s in that his paintings are very intellectual… I’d like to capture Diego Maradona just before he had his mental collapse (after knocking Italy out of the World Cup in Naples) and print one which is Diego and one which is Maradona.

It’s also influenced by Eleanor Moreton in as far as the three portraits are really a narrative oF Diego Maradona’s life.

If I can do this using the same image, but subtly alter it, that would be ideal. Maybe I could do one in thick paint and one in thin? I need to experiment. If that’s too difficult I’ll use different source images.

And then a final image of Diego Maradona as an old man… is he Diego? Maradona? Or someone else entirely? The voiceover was current but he was off camera narrating old footage… my feeling was he had found some peace but was still battling inside and still a mix of crushed kid and bragging star.

It would also make a comment on age.

      2. Self portrait with Chantal Joffe as my primary influence, but also calling on Picasso/Franz Kline and Elizabeth Paynton (in her sensitively rendered portraits.)

For this I want to experiment with three ways of making a self portrait – but it could be any portrait. By making it of the same person (me) but radically changing my methodology and approach I want to see how much and what different aspects of my  personality each method can capture.

A) I like the energy of Franz Kline and the clean black lines but also the complexity of Picasso linocuts. So I’d like to do a series riffing of both these and see which works and if there’s anything of me left… maybe not ‘visually’ but maybe in another way… and stretch the boundaries of what can be a portrait.

B) Chantel Joffe is appealing for her psychological distortions (while still looking like a person) involving shape and colour. Can I capture something of ‘me’ by freeing myself from an illusionistic representation.

C) Elizabeth Paynton has a sensitivity and lightness of touch that I love. She goes inside the soul of her subject through the eyes. As an actor that’s something I can connect with.

On top of this I’d like to upscale to A3 or A2 for one or more of my monoprints, depending if I can find some glass? Just to see what difference scale makes to my approach and results.

All of this might turn out to be a dogs dinner, it may or may not work… but I want to try, as Diana said, to try and experiment, explore, ask questions and not be tied to producing a ‘finished’ piece for my Assignment.

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Test (1) Diego Maradona

I watched the documentary film twice and have a fairly good idea what I want to communicate… this is feeling of his personality.

My first job was to wade through images and print some off… the iconic image for the movie works well… Maradona as god (with halo), saint, without doubt… conquerer and demanding of respect. I cropped this down from the poster.

It was a big decision but I decided to go head and shoulder rather than man in context… so, the differences are mainly in how he holds his face and the eyes. And it’s also easier to crop all the images to a similar format.

Maradonna as god:

(Plus it’s an iconic image as it’s been picked by the film company out of all the Maradona photographs for its poster, and will be instantly recognisable worldwide.)

5 test prints with oil paint on A4 watercolour paper:

First some housekeeping rules about printing with water based oil paint.

1. The first two prints I didn’t dilute the paint enough and it didn’t print.
2. Diluting with ‘thinner’ is okay but it evaporates quickly and thickens up, plus there’s a small colour change – it’s much better to dilute with a mixture of 50/50 thinner and medium (an oil) as this makes a lovely runny creamy paint that fixes well to the paper, doesn’t change colour and stays runny for much longer.

3. Water based oils only act like acrylics on the day you use them…

a) With acrylics you can leave your brushes in water for 2 or 3 days and them rinse them out… with water based oil the oil paint start to oxidise (or some chemical process takes place) and it sticks to the brushes and is really hard to wash out. So you can wash your brushes in warm water and soap but only if you do it at the end of the day.

b) If you let acrylic dry on your palette you can peel it off like a skin by running a knife under it then easily go over the little bits that remain with a scratchy pad. If you leave water based oil you can’t peel it off with a knife and it’s very difficult to take off with a scratchy pad as it clogs it all up. So you have to wash your palette at the end of the day or at the latest the next day.

c) With acrylics they are touch dry in hours so if the painting falls over or you touch an area you’ve painted it doesn’t smudge, but with water based oils they can take two weeks to be touch dry (if diluted it’s up to a week) so you have to be very careful and keep you hand free of the canvas… and be aware if the wind might blow your paper over.

d) Water based oils and acrylics mix together differently. You need to be very careful with water based oils when transferring paint and keep everything clean… if you touch two colours together they seem to mix. This didn’t seem to be a problem with acrylics. However, on the canvas this can be a blessing as you can add tiny dots of colour (like blue to skin) to the canvas and mix them with your base colour.

e) Layering: with acrylics you can layer the next day… with oils you might have to wait 2 weeks to a month which obviously slows the process down; which would explain why the old masters worked on several paintings simultaneously.

So, I would say, apart from being able to wash your brushes/palette the same day in water and not have the expense and smell of turps water based oils behave much more like traditional oil paints than acrylic.

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Monotypes:

I’ve learned that with monotypes you can control (to a certain extent) the final image by the viscosity of the paint, how heavily you apply the paint and the number of colour blocks you use.

The paper you print on is also very important… it was a happy chance that I chose cold pressed watercolour paper as the textured printing surface gives me a lovely cracked finish.

My five test prints:

1 and 2… I was learning how much paint to apply and how thin it should be.

3rd A4 monotype… I’m calling this: Maradona

3: I love this as it has the confidence and arrogance of Maradona but the image is falling apart (the white traces mimic cocaine) like his life was at the time. So it shows both the image and the reality. The right eye is perfect (tonally the white of the eyes and the graded out black have a real haunting quality). I like the way the right hand side of the image is holding together while the left is falling apart.

Another way of looking at it is to see it as an image painted on the sides of buildings in Napoli when he was considered a god… if those images remain the paint will now be peeling and falling off like this image, so it also comments on fame and time.

It was accidental but I put too much blue on the shirt and there was some slippage as I printed which makes it hand made and (I’m not entirely sure why but works really well).

Finally, I only used a few premixed skin colours which gives it a print rather than a painterly quality – the blockiness and flatness works well for an iconographic image.

I don’t know if I could repeat this so I might use it as one of my final images depending what happens with the rest of Diego Maradona’s prints and my self portrait.

4th monotype

This has a totally different feel – the white on the left down his cheek destroys the image.

5th monotype – Diego

Diego was the insecure slum boy who created Maradona to cope with the fame/TV/press etc. I used more colour mixing so it’s more painterly, it’s much more of a representational ‘solid’ image and I painted back into his mouth which captures his insecurity.

To me this looks like Diego, he’s not confident at all whatever pose Maradona is taking. Diego came out behind closed door and on the pitch playing football.

Painting back into the monotype radically changes the medium – like adding blue to yellow to make green/or a cat turning into a dog… it becomes a different beast. It’s no longer a monotype, no longer ‘mechanical’/hand made but somehow it becomes a species of painting.

Diego (the insecure sensitive kid from the slums)

I chose this image because I couldn’t find any photographs of  Maradona behind closed doors, and the only other time his troubles went away/he became Diego was on the pitch. This is a few years before the other image and before his god like fame and cocaine habit had kicked in.

Also it echos the other print as he’s in a blue shirt so football is a constant.

I think to represent Diego I’m going to try and make the prints more solid and ‘realistic’ to mirror that he’s more whole as a person. I’ll do this by mixing more skin colours and making it less print like.

And I’ll make the background behind his hair green to reflect the football pitch which was his first love. The sky behind him is a solid colour unlike the godlike halo of the previous image. It would be nice if I could do this without painting back into the monotype but I may try that depending on what happens.

I am pleasantly surprised how each monotype takes on a real personality.

5 try out A4 monotypes:

I wanted to get Diego’s image solid to contrast to the degraded image of Maradona. And although the 4th print was getting there the prints although all different weren’t getting significantly better.

It is possible to get a solid print but my technical skills in matching the tone and colour of the original and getting the right fluidity aren’t up to it yet. Some of the detail drys while I’m painting the monotype. This was a much harder image to paint with many more colour and tonal changes.

So, after four prints I decided to take my fourth print and paint back into it.

What I love about the printing is it blends the edges and you get a lovely overall textured image, which isn’t flat but doesn’t have brush marks, and has a distinct life of its own.

Painted back into image (A4):

Parts of this are working; I quite like his mouth and chin and I was able to add spatial perspective to the grass (it made me realise how much white was reflecting through the monotype)

Diego Maradona as he is now

Diego Maradona as old man (there was a very poignant clip at the end of the movie where he was coaching a women’s team and scored a goal… he could hardly run was so overweight… yet even with these women there was a flash of the desire to win as he did a little celebration… I wanted to capture that dichotomy and sadness.)

This was the hardest photograph to find as all his online image now are posed and very few are looking at the camera. It’s almost like he’s packaged and managed… there was a certain look I anted and this was the nearest I could find.

Something in the eyes shows pain and weakness… Diego peeping through the mask.

I might try and simplify this colour and tone wise and make it more blocky? And try and get a solid print, or at least minimal white.

5 A4 Monotypes:

First print:

I tried a different approach which was to simplify the colours on his face and everywhere else to three hue/tones and add more medium instead of thinner (the thinner dries and you end up with white patches or lines… the medium doesn’t).

My aim was to get an all over print that I wouldn’t have to paint back into (or only minimally) and to make it more blocky and flat – so trying to pick up on the visual language of prints more than paintings – and slightly expressionistic in a Toulouse Lautrec kind of a way. And make it more of an ‘abstract’ colour composition.

Hence, playing with greys and blacks (blue grey suit/grey grey in the hair, sofa, behind his head and the black in the hair – which is died and not the same black as when he was younger – picked up in the shadow behind the suit so taking his head down and across rather than having it in outline. Even the shirt is a very light blue which picks up the blue grey of the suit

He’s surrounded by darkness which is symbolic of his depression, continuing fight with addiction and the dark days behind him/and he’s nearing the end of his life.

Yet his face shines through… his fame and talent have gone yet he (whatever he is now) survives.

I would need to paint back in to get his trademark diamond earrings, the highlights in his hair and white teeth, but in terms of the mood I wanted this is working towards what I want. However, I’m going to see if I can get the earrings and highlights by adjusting the paint or leaving white paper.

Second print:

I am amazed by the different feel to this print than the first one… it’s much sharper and younger. It would be possible to paint back into this and get Maradona back… he’s there but he needs brining into focus.

The tie and shirt work really well – this looks like a white shirt on the painting but on the palette it was light ultramarine blue.

I used the paint left over from the first print two days later but mixed more grey into it which accounts for it being less red, but I think I’ll try brown in the next one so he’s more tanned than flushed. Once the paint has started to oxidise it doesn’t take as well on the paper hence the white paper… and if it’s too runny with thinner and mixing oil it squidges like his hair at the top and lapels. Thinned paint dries quickly and won’t print if you take too long to finish the painting.

The shorthand line for the edge of the lapel works even though it’s not realistic, it’s fun to start playing with visual language.

I can’t decide about the which eyes I like best as they’re doing different things, in the second print the eyes are slightly wrong but still skewer the viewer more.

The big thing I need to decide is the background behind the hair as the brown grey doesn’t work… I might go back to a dark blue grey as this will symbolise his lost past, isolate his face and is traditional. The other option would be a dark brown like Rembrandt but I don’t want to warm this up at all.

Third print:

For this I’ll mix entirely new paint and try just with medium and no thinner.

I like the colours and the control but without the thinner there’s less flow so it hasn’t taken on the toothed paper. The paint has stayed where I put it so given me more control but there’s less coverage… so I either need to add thinner or use a thicker coating of paint.

Because the paint moves less there’s less chance, and printing is a wonderful dance between chance and design… so here one partner is leading and the balance has been lost.

The colour mix is better on this.

I bought two 85w daylight bulbs in light boxes (425w equivalent each) which has vastly improved the quality of light and am now working in my garage, I managed to clear half of it.

For the fourth print I’ll add some thinner and then for the fifth I’ll paint back into one of the prints.

Looking at all three prints they each have pro’s and cons… I think the position of Maradona’s body and the bulkiness of it works better on the last print.

Fourth monotype:

It’s marginally better than the third print and has taken a bit more of the paint is still too stiff.

I’m going to paint back into it.

Fifth print:

I don’t like this as an isolated print because it’s too tight but as part of the triptich I wanted it to have a totally different feel to the other two monotypes…. I did think about putting a piece of paper on top and rolling it over to put a bit of randomness back in but though that would have made a looser print it would have destroyed my concept.

Here, I wanted a man manicured, drenched in make up, performing for the camera in an arena made to make him look good. TV, while purporting to be real is the falsest, is the farthest from reality.

The first image is genuine, Diego happy on the pitch; the second image is real… it’s Maradona trying to shoulder the stress of god like fame while Diego crumbles and they both sink into a cocaine habit; the third image is not real… it’s manicured entertainment for the TV company to boost its ratings.

The first print was joyous and innocent, the second showed Maradona falling apart… with the third image we just get the packaging. But the other two prints position (showing his journey) our viewing.

In the final image do we see Diego, Maradona… or both… or neither… who is this old man?

What is his truth?

He has a narrative in the interview, but this came from carefully scripted questions and the life narrative he has told himself. But I want the viewer to read their own narrative into his life and to try and find the truth and pathos of his life .Which is also why I wanted this the third monotype to be a shell/packaging/make up/studio lights/a long constructed story to validate his life to himself… What I wanted was for the viewer to see how false the studio image is (the reality of this image is it’s entertainment passed off as reality) and fill in what’s inside him.

From a painterly point of view I like the shirt, tie and jacket of the third print… that looseness would be a nice way to paint.

My final format…

I chose this because it reminded me of the strips of photographs you get out of the photo machines at railway stations for passport photographs… only this one photographs your whole life.

The strips are a visual medium (rather than left to write reading of a book) and have a time order – just like the young, mature and old Maradona; and you have to wait for them to develop so it introduces a time element. Three minutes might not equate to a life but it’s the idea of snapshots of time and of things developing.

All of which are useful meanings to enhance the prints and help them work together.

(NB: There’s a reason I’ve painted the old Maradona as I have (I don’t like it as a ‘print’ but I wanted to make it the least realistic of the three, and ironically the best way to do that was to make it tight and ‘realist’. I explain it some more on print three.)

Once I’d decided on a vertical strip I had to decide which order. I only tried two as in my previous tests I’d decided non of the strips I’d started with the drug riddled Maradona worked.

This was fascinating exercise (and almost as useful as making the prints) because it made me realise how many ways I could display these three prints and every one changed their meaning.

There are thirteen different arrangements here and I could have easily done 50… had my lighting and space been up to it. Each basic arrangements has six orders and there are several arrangements I haven’t tried.

Before I started I’d decided to do left to right as that is how we read information and probably start with the young Diego so I did six of these to test out the order and see if anything unusual came up… it didn’t. Then, more to satisfy the exercise but also because I might be entirely wrong (and printing has taught me the value of ‘random’ chance and trying out new ways of doing things) I tried all sorts of arrangements.

Tis threw up the vertical strips which I used as my Assignment.

If I hadn’t experimented I would never have found them… yet once I saw them the arrangement sprang out at me.

My ideas: 

1. Conceptual linkage… Annie Kevans is the main inspiration.

Three prints of Diego Maradona (I just saw the film) – the link is they are all of the same person, but he was two people for most of his life: Diago the scared sensitive slum boy and Maradona the preening fearless superstar he invented to cope with fame… he also had a mental collapse, careered downward into drugs, lost his career and became a fat old deposed demigod living off his myth. The most moving clip for me was when he was coaching a women’s team (so fat he could barely run) and he dribbled the ball and scored – a flash of glee glee chased across his face – I couldn’t tell if it was Diego or Maradona but when put against his goals at the world cup, perhaps, the greatest footballer of all time it was high pathos.

So, and this also references Luc Tyman’s in that his paintings are very intellectual… I’d like to capture Diego Maradona just before he had his mental collapse (after knocking Italy out of the World Cup in Naples) and print one which is Diego and one which is Maradona.

It’s also influenced by Eleanor Moreton in as far as the three portraits are really a narrative oF Diego Maradona’s life.

If I can do this using the same image, but subtly alter it, that would be ideal. Maybe I could do one in thick paint and one in thin? I need to experiment. If that’s too difficult I’ll use different source images.

And then a final image of Diego Maradona as an old man… is he Diego? Maradona? Or someone else entirely? The voiceover was current but he was off camera narrating old footage… my feeling was he had found some peace but was still battling inside and still a mix of crushed kid and bragging star.

It would also make a comment on age.

      2. Self portrait with Chantal Joffe as my primary influence, but also calling on Picasso/Franz Kline and Elizabeth Paynton (in her sensitively rendered portraits.)

For this I want to experiment with three ways of making a self portrait – but it could be any portrait. By making it of the same person (me) but radically changing my methodology and approach I want to see how much and what different aspects of my  personality each method can capture.

A) I like the energy of Franz Kline and the clean black lines but also the complexity of Picasso linocuts. So I’d like to do a series riffing of both these and see which works and if there’s anything of me left… maybe not ‘visually’ but maybe in another way… and stretch the boundaries of what can be a portrait.

B) Chantel Joffe is appealing for her psychological distortions (while still looking like a person) involving shape and colour. Can I capture something of ‘me’ by freeing myself from an illusionistic representation.

C) Elizabeth Paynton has a sensitivity and lightness of touch that I love. She goes inside the soul of her subject through the eyes. As an actor that’s something I can connect with.

On top of this I’d like to upscale to A3 or A2 for one or more of my monoprints, depending if I can find some glass? Just to see what difference scale makes to my approach and results.

All of this might turn out to be a dogs dinner, it may or may not work… but I want to try, as Diana said, to try and experiment, explore, ask questions and not be tied to producing a ‘finished’ piece for my Assignment.

How would I develop this?

I would experiment more and do things like paint back into a print and then print from that… and see what happened to both prints. I would upscale it and try and do prints in A1 or A2 by working directly onto the plate rather than using the photograph.

So I captured the photograph (his personality) in different ways like the early ink exercise I did for my self portrait.

I’d also try expressionist versions and a version like Franz Kline – abstract with bold black brushstrokes that tried to capture something else.

And I’d vary the paper… smooth, rough, absorbent… maybe try weird surfaces like plastic. I could also play about with diluting my paint and I think printers inks might work well.

I could print parts, let it dry and then print another layer…

In fact I could probably develop this print and printing for a whole career.

Which artists influenced me and why?

Annie Kevans for working in series, I adapted her idea (though you could do a series on fallen idols – stars who’d destroyed themselves with drink or drugs) to making the three portraits link together.

So, I took her concept of connection.

Luc Tymans for ideological complexity.

And, if it doesn’t sound too wishy washy the slew of post 1968 painters I’ve been studying  – I read/look at 4 post 1968 painters every day – who are using the subject as a vehicle to paint something else rather than the subject. So, this gave me the idea to paint the inner Diego Maradona using his outer image.

Looking at the assessment criteria:

1. Demonstration of visual skills:

Although I have only scratched the surface of printing I think my observational skills have been good. The ink sketches were new yet managed to capture a likeness I’ve never approached before.

I’m still struggling to accept something I can do in two minutes can be more valuable than something I’ve sweated over for a week.

The printing was a revelation and though I’m still coming to terms with the basics in terms of using the new technique I think I used the materials and techniques well.

2) Quality of outcome:

I’m very pleased with the way my concept developed and how the portraits have captured that, especially as they are finally displayed.

I think the bold freshness of colours in the first, the cocaine traced iconic image and overpainted studio shot all capture the inner reality I was trying to portray.

My aim was to make the viewer see the real Diego Maradona. I wanted, if you like, to capture the two hour documentary in three monotypes, and I think I came very close to doing that.

3) Demonstration of creativity:

This Assignment was a big step for me in moving away from traditional representational image making to developing an idea and risking new ways of creating images.

The monoprints came at just the right time as they forced me into creating non representational images, but I think my creativity showed in that I was able to use and build on the accidents that happened and allow them to lead me towards meaning. More a collaboration with the painting than me dictating meaning, which was one of the feedbacks from my tutor.

I also think I was creative in the exercises such as trying Picasso type pottery prints, linocut type prints and expressionism.

4) Context:

Always difficult as I’m doing so much reading that my artistic universe is expanding exponentially. Everything references everything else like an evolving language, and everybody borrows from everybody else.

I’m at the stage when I’m going back to Hockney and seeing his work as something totally new, more abstract than figurative, or seeing Richard Diebenkorn as capturing a place (almost painting air and light) and marvelling at the later work of Philip Guston where six months ago I might have dismissed it.

So, I’m building a base – learning a language – which is just coming into focus. This itself is beginning to inform and radically change my work.

Specifically to this exercise, I researched all the named artists (though they weren’t particularly working in monotypes) and used the bits I liked and rejected the bits that didn’t work for me. Even if I hated somebody’s work (or worse it left me cold like Yuko Nasu) that gave me a context in understanding this exercise and my painting.

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Research:

Research five artists before starting this Assignment and see how their series of portraits work as a whole and individually.

1) Annie Kevans: b. 1972 (English artist working in Cannes)

Paints series of portraits which are conceptually linked and re-imagine strongly held concepts and histories.

For example in her ‘Gods and Aliens’ series she looked at the different status given to leaders of recognised religions as compared to UFO believers.

This foregrounds the basic human need to be believed.

The conventional approach to religious leaders is (if you’re a believer) to revere them or (if you’re not a believer) dismiss them as self serving, dangerous and hypocritical. An equivalent argument could be applied to UFO believers, though they have far less societal acceptance/status. But whichever viewpoint you take such people are usually seen in reference to their beliefs, to take them out of the context of belief systems/ideologies and centre them as damaged human beings changes the debate. They can be seen as extreme examples of the human need to be heard and believed (even if those beliefs are entirely fictional) – and in doing so they profit from those lies by (in the church) earning a living and getting a free house and for UFO believers gaining notoriety, selling books… and earning a living.

This allows us to compare religious and UFO leaders (neither – though many eminent scientists say that statistically alien life should exist – have any evidence for their beliefs yet one has status and power and the other are considered cranks) and think about them in terms of society: what they get out of it, them as needy human beings, the power of self delusion, the ethics of selling something you don’t believe in order to get money and what need do they fulfil for individuals and society.

In terms of this Assignment my takeaway is her use of existing images… she doesn’t use them to make a copy – and sell the paintings by grabbing some of their stardom/brand value (though there is a tiny element of that her work is more humane and conceptual) but as a loose reference to a physical reality. What she actually paints is a real person she has researched, and then breathes imaginative life into.

Her collective framing makes her conceptual point.

These paintings are taken as a group not as single paintings.

Robert Temple/ Arthur C Clark/ Pope John Paul II

(Interesting that she paints the Pope in red, the colour of blood.)

So, whatever I do I’m going to try and make my paintings work as a series.

2) Yuko Nasu: b. Around 1976??? in Japan – lives and works in London.

Reading an article on Yuko Nasu posted in 2010: http://www.noblahblah.org/yuko-nasu/ she says she works part time, takes anything from 15 minutes to two months to complete a portrait and once finished never goes back to them.

She works in series, but looking at her series (such as the one below) I can’t see any unifying concept in the collection, she doesn’t talk about her ideas… apart from them all being strangers.

If she chooses to work in series and makes no comment, which I’m fine with, then you need to be able to get some sense of collective meaning from the collection itself. Sadly, I can’t see any meaning over and above a collection of strangers.

Maybe her work comments on personal identity in a group or how we view strangers. Indeed she is quoted as saying: ‘To draw someone we do not know, who might be someone special is my interest’

Imaginary Portrait Series, 2006, oil on paper, 18 pieces (50 x 40 cm each). Courtesy of Yuko Nasu

Another way into her work might be to think about physical disfigurement and identity? Or how we judge strangers by physical appearance… or how little we know strangers and yet how quickly we judge?

The series begins to work on the level of making me revisit – see anew – the human face. Just how much do we need to see… how does physical appearance affect perception. But to be honest, I struggle to connect as I can’t see the point (I can’t find any concept or meaning) and as works of art they don’t connect either… I’m not emotionally, psychologically or spiritually drawn to them for example.

In 2009 she gained some notoriety by painting a famous person… Kate Moss. (But I can’t find any images of the series so don’t know how or if they link together – I’m guessing the other faces were all unknown but there’s no press about it.

Imaginary Portrait Series, KM2, 2009, oil on paper, 50 x 40 cm. Courtesy of Yuko Nasu

I’m struggling with are why she’s painting faces in a series? There appears to be no thought or concepts involved.The only answer I could come up with was that they have more visual impact as a group???? But that’s to do with marketing not art.

On an artistic level – though it’s interesting to see just how far you can move away from ‘realism’ and still get some artistic traction, I can’t get away from feeling these are empty brushstrokes. A process of distortion repeated with slight variations on anonymous faces – they capture nothing for me; not process, not physicality, not personality, not aesthetics, not soul, not personality etc.

Looking at her technique:

Imaginary Portrait Series, Y, 2007, oil on paper, 50 x 40 cm. Courtesy of Yuko Nasu

She is painting not monotyping, and the results are only minimally faces.

In terms of Assignment 3 however this does this give me confidence to go completely ‘bonkers’ if I want and not feel pigeon holed into producing three visually ‘realistic’ faces.

One of my ideas was to produce a monotype which was a cross between Franz Klein and Picasso Cubist influenced linoprint?!

3) Luc Tymans: b. 1958 (Lives and works in Antwerp).

Tymans is listed by the Tate Modern as one of the most significant and influential contemporary painters working today… that was in 2004.

Watching a couple of videos and reading about him, what strikes me is his intellectualism. Not conceptualism, he’s not painting concepts… he’s visualising philosophical and intellectual arguments. All his paintings have deep layers of meaning which can be read without accompanying notes.

For instance his ‘Utopian’ painting of Shanghai skyline through the ring of a bridge neatly dispels our preconceptions about China as a backward country, and also makes us contemplate China as both utopia and a growing threat to the world. Whether he was driven to paint first and then read in meanings, or filled himself with ideas and then let the painting come in afterwards is not clear.

Another huge influence is media… film/TV and photographs and he often uses stills from films in his works – not the obvious stills featuring the protagonist but shots such as a cut from the film of an ex-king king visiting his colony in the former Belgium Congo as a young man.  He has chosen the shot showing the kings feet and some black hands holding down the Leopard Skin.

Leopard 2000

He also uses photographic techniques such as tight cropping.

His use of media images reminded me of an early Gerhard Richter and a recent artist I looked at, Eleanor Moreton.

Another big part of his process is his subtle use of tonality. He says tones are much more important to memory than colour, so a lot of his paintings are tonally muted or in black and white. Added to this he celebrates the weakness of our visual memories which he says are imprecise and fractured. He reflects this in his paintings by (though figurative) almost moving them move towards semi-abstraction, and certainly far away from ‘photographic’ clarity and tightness; and not concerning himself too much with painting craft skills.

Each painting is unique, though he often examines a theme from different angles and will sometimes consider an issue for a year, but he doesn’t paint in series like Annie Kevans.

My main take on his painting for this Assignment is his internal cohesion, and the way (like Annie Kevans) he brings life to, and re-imagines, photographs.

Käthe Grüsse, 1990

Here Tuymans uses close cropping.

Another preoccupation is the painted versus the mechanical/digital mediums of TV and film.  A painting is a hand made object with a different presence and physicality to the projected TV or film image. Both have a life and death, though the painting may be remembered and relevant for much longer than the film.

Finally, he refuses to spend more than one day on a canvas. His paintings are not valued for their high craft value like a Monet or a Rubens. It’s their intellectual content that has enamoured the art world.

This doesn’t help me with printing a series but moves me away again from focussing on a tight visual (external) likeness. I could paint my monotypes quickly and let them fill up with meaning – and that’s equally as valid as high illusionistic craft skills.

I do feel a little adrift in a tiny boat too far from shore to return to the firm ground of my tiny illusionistic island, and with no charts to guide me to the world of visual enchantments that await across the ocean. … choppy seas all around and a gale blowing up.

But hopefully, that’s what this degree will do – help me cross to the other side.

4) Eleanor Moreton: b. 1956 (Lives and works in London)

Although seemingly representative Eleanor’s real subject in her portraiture is narrative. She takes existing photographs and envisions the reality behind the person and the moment. Her paintings move away from the representative (a copy of a photograph of 3D objects, people, in space) to paints the psychology of the person and the story behind the photograph.

She is a hugely skilful painter and this brings the absent into the present. We feel her subjects as real people, but obviously we are faced with a painting not a real person, so we feel both the absence of the person (they are not in the room with us); but also the absence of the person from history. How they were important vibrant artists lighting up their own world and informing/questioning society… and what is left of them as time and culture has moved on.

Her portraits are therefore not interested in capturing a (flattering) ‘likeness’ but in nailing psychological realities. A psychological reality of a person based in time and the narrative of their own lives and their placer in history.

One example of this a body of work called:

Absent Friends from 2014

This looks like a series to me… they are all painted in a similar way and all thematically linked by being women and by being absent (I couldn’t find who these absent friends were – the title are forenames like: Rebecca.).

Just looking at one painting in more detail:

Absent Friends: Young Rebecca, 35.5 x 27.5 cms   oil and pastel on birch panel   2014

She has used thinned down paint, left much of the panel clear, used visable brushstrokes as part of the texture of her painting, flattened the image, simplified the image, exemplified the eyes, and worked quickly. All strategies that would translate well  to monoprinting.

Relating this to my Assignment I would her meaning comes from the ‘knowing’ knowing these people and their place in the world. Which I could use by painting a character that I have researched and using the face as a loose visual reference point to anchor my psychological understanding of them and their place in history.

In Eleanor’s case she didn’t need to add life to these ‘absent’ friends because they were real to her, the photographs were just a prompt. For me I will have to draw on my acting skills to make the people ‘real’… and paint that.

5) Chantel Joffe: b. 1969 (US based in London)

 

 

The Wikipedia entry draws attention to her huge paintings, often 3 meters tall, for which she has to stand on a scaffold. As might be expected her style on these includes bold brushstrokes and dripping paint (she must use thinned down paint), and outlines left on the paper. And that painting so close and so big led her to incorporate Picasso style distortions, though coming from process rather than concept… more like a wonky manga than a Picasso Cubist or African influenced painting.

However, more recently (and these are the paintings I’ve chosen to look at) she seems to be painting on a much smaller scale.

She has kept the distortion, but this must be deliberate as at this scale the whole image is in her field of vision. Both these paintings make me smile, so this is another artistic technique… this has made me realise that I’ve seen very little humour in art, and almost none in ‘high art’.

You get Beryl Cook’s paintings which are caricatured comic figurative/narrative paintings. But this is a different type of humour, not a self deprecating joke at the expense of fat women and the working class, but a wry look at her own personality.

For source materials Wikipedia says she uses, “photos of friends, the work of other artists” and that her subjects (women and children) are posed naturally.

Here’s a couple of her recent self portraits. I chose these because of their small scale and because, though she doesn’t paint in series as such – or at least it’s not mentioned, these being all self portraits and with the same medium on the same ground sort of make themselves into a series.

SELF-PORTRAIT, 1ST JANUARY, 2018, OIL ON BOARD, 24 1/8″ X 18″. © CHANTAL JOFFE. COURTESY THE ARTIST AND VICTORIA MIRO, LONDON/VENICE.

Self-Portrait II, August, 2018, Oil on board,

40.7 x 30.5 cm, 16 1/8 x 12 1/8 in

What I notice about these is that the whole of the board is painted in heavy quick strokes. The faces are simplified, there’s no attempt at realism, she uses physical distortions (the eyes are too big) and colour distortions (the green above her top eyes I find particularly amusing for some reason???) to capture personality and mood… and both self portraits are looking directly, skewering, the viewer so they are very much engaging us.

She’s used line and some tone, mainly for shadow but also a little modelling.

How does this help me with my Assignment?

Again, it’s another use of photographs (though these may have been done with a mirror it’s very difficult to hold a meaningful look, which is a momentary passing thought, without it becoming frozen) but only as a starting point. These are painted ‘to the side’ of the physical reality.

So, she gives me licence to distort my faces… not as Berly Cook caricatures or painterly Picasso experimentations (though that’s something I want to try) but as psychological expressionism.  And to use photographs, as long as the photograph is only a starting point and very loose visual reference.