Stay on the case.
I have been lucky enough with this project to find plenty of bang on context, with many major contemporary artists dealing with the same issues or working in a similar way.
British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare addressed homelessness with his 2012 work “Crisis Man”. His aim was to awaken some “empathy in those who have for those who do not… There is always a possibility your wealthy world could come crashing down at any time.”
Shonibare was an obvious contextual reference for me after having the thought of using an antique suitcase as an integral part of a portrait of a man who had become homeless through addiction.
The suitcase has very obvious links to homelessness. Having something to keep a small amount of possessions in and to be ready and able to move on at very short notice. Only the suitcase, in this case, is no help or solution to the homeless persons chronic lack of mobility in their situation.
The homeless are often caught in a trap of not being able to get away from their environment and the problems that put them in their situation.
I decided to paint this mans portrait not on the outside of a closed suitcase, but on the inside of a suitcase flapping open. You may want to get away, but you cannot travel or move on with your suitcase hanging open. With the suitcase loading the work with meaning the painting itself needed to be kept as simple as possible.
I painted with one single tone leaving the patterned suitcase lining to show through, giving what I believe is a nice visual effect, he is there but not entirely, just what I hoped for.
In titling this piece I used something the man said when interviewed.
“ I don’t run fast enough”.
The man obviously did not mean he could not physically run fast enough, but that he could never get away from the problems that continually impacted upon his life. He summed up in very simple terms a certain aspect of himself and provided me with a pertinent title.
http://www.stephenfriedman.com/news/archive/2012/yinka-shonibare-mbe-in-crisis-commission-exhibition-at-somerset-house-london
“Gotta stay on the scene”. James Brown
It would be easy to drift off course and to bend my project to suit the work I’m making, so to stay on the case, I do need to restate some of the main aims of my work.
To choose to portray people in a homeless situation, who have been in a homeless situation or live with the threat of homelessness.
To address the variety of people in these situations and not concentrate on a certain group or stereotype.
My criteria and brief in how to portray these people:
*Non judgemental
*With respect
*With Equality and fairness
*With Truthfulness
To understand that ordinary peoples lives have a story, an epic quality, that they have as much weight, meaning, depth and drama as any King, Queen, dignitary, hero or icon that may have ever been considered worthy of a painted portrait.
A Beautiful piece of Poetry.
This man and composition was chosen from a number of stills from video footage. He appealed to me because of his look and because of what he had to say and how he said it. The man recited a poem he himself had composed about his life. His words and language were plain and simple but with these plain words he created something of great articulacy, intelligence and depth, a work that because of the uncomplicated language, was accessible to all. This encouraged and reassured me by re-emphasising to myself exactly what I am aiming for. I want my own work to speak in an uncomplicated way, to be direct and popular with the viewing audience, in order to reach as many people and as wide a range of people as possible.
The objective for my own work has always been to speak in the same uncomplicated way but to carry depth, weight and emotional meaning. I want the viewer to be able to appreciate the work purely on a visual level, but also, if they wish, if they feel the need or have the will, to be able to enter in and think of deeper meanings and find other emotional levels to the work. The approach to this piece was to be as minimal as possible, to tell as much as I could with as little visual information as possible. It was a nice idea, but the man’s face told its own story, and I could not force my own structure on it. In this case I had to go with it and let the sitter lead the way for me. More of the composition was painted in than was first intended, but the work is better for it. There are still areas of the face left unpainted, but the viewer has more than enough other visual information to fill these in for themselves. I feel the work is easily strong enough to be exhibited and has enough about it to be a stand-alone piece if I choose it to be.
My Space.
Degree show spaces have now been allocated and my own plans can be drawn up. Wall space is in short supply, but I am happy with my lot. Having hoped to display two large scale pieces decent viewing distances were required and that is what has been provided, one wall 3 metres wide, another at a ninety degree angle to this at about 4m wide.
The large works are both oversize head and shoulder portraits approximately 1.2m wide by 1.8m high. Square on viewing distances of at least 3m were needed to observe the works in their entirety both individually and for them to be seen in one view together. The 3m wall can accommodate both the works and the viewing distances comfortably.
The works, two very different faces were conceived and designed to work together, to both compliment, spark off and create a dialogue with each other, therefore the reason distances were so important to me. With technical aspects covered it is up to me to deliver my conception.
The second wall is to carry many more works in entirely different arrangements to create a contrast with the more ordered structure of the first. I feel it is important to the subject matter to try to grab and hold the viewer’s interest with the many different styles, approaches, surfaces and sizes of composition I have been working in. The aim is to plant some kind of idea in the audience of the scale, complexity, diversity and randomness of the issue I am trying to portray without actually spelling it out. The space is being prepared, the work is progressing at a pace and soon will be ready to be considered, edited and hung.
“I didn’t want the best players, I wanted the best team”
Today I was thinking of the process of choosing suitable subjects for portraits. It isn’t always easy, not everybody has a face for it.
Choosing people to paint for this project has been even more difficult, and has increased my workload in actually finding suitable people. The weight and breadth of the subject matter is not expressed in any one face of the many individuals I have encountered, it cannot be.
With limited wall space for my degree show the problem of addressing the variety and sheer amount of people affected by homelessness was beginning to trouble me. With the wall space available to me I would only be able to hang about six standard sized portraits and each face would be crucial, they would all have to be very strong in appearance and this in itself would be a misrepresentation of the issue of homelessness.
It was when researching contemporary portraiture that I found what could be the answer. Street artist Jef Aerosol found one solution to a different problem of how to bring street art into a gallery setting by exhibiting a large number of small portraits in a cluster, group or montage. This artist’s problem was one of how to keep some of the freshness and throwaway nature of the work in a more rarefied gallery atmosphere, the chaotic and seemingly random arrangements in size and style of portraits he chose were a very effective solution. Yes I had a different problem to this artist, but his solution to a different problem could also work very well for me. In choosing to exhibit a larger number of portraits in this way I would at once be representing in some way the number and variety of the people I needed to be painting. Not every portrait would have to carry heavy meaning all by itself, the weight of the subject matter could be carried collectively, some could be light, some could be barely working as individual portraits, but when displayed together they could be much more powerful.
I gathered together many of the smaller pieces I had been working on and tried them in different numbers and arrangements. Most worked well, but some worked better than others. The arrangement that I was most pleased with was one where all the faces looked directly out at the viewer. I found that when looking at this one, I felt a strong emotional reaction which I simply did not get looking at any one of the portraits on their own. I could not get away from or ignore them and provoking this reaction from the viewer was one of the very earliest aims of the project.
All in all this exploration has seemed like a real breakthrough and has given me plenty to consider when it comes to exhibiting.
