What are we looking for in a portrait, why does someone want to be painted? What are they trying to say or capture that a selfie can’t? This is the question I found myself asking and that I hoped to be able to answer.
Copy Cats by Adebanji Alade
Visiting the Portraits awards is actually something new for me, it’s not an event that I usually attend. However ‘Finding Likeness in Watford‘ due to open in the coming month I was inspired to see the show.
This portrait by Adebanji Alade captured my attention. It was a scene familiar to me and one that represents the question nature or nurture and what are the importance of what we mirror to the world and especially our children.
Are we simply nurturing something in us that we has been passed on or nurturing a reflection of a way of being?
Portraits capture something a photo cannnot, the unseen.
Matthew by Angela Classi
Something that I have learnt from Wendy Sherwood and her study of what it means to capture a likeness, is that with a portrait you can share a few more pages from the story of the sitter and the artist through the choice of application, perspective and composition. Aspects of character and personality that aren’t always seen, can be portrayed through colour and texture making a portrait so much more that an accurate skillful rendition of a person.
My Friend as he is by S Ross Browne
Self Portrait by Chris Ofili
