Painting · Portrait

Portraits

BP Portrait Award selected work, Ruth Borchard self-portraits, and other portraits.

Data: 1 października 2023
Technika: Mixed media on canvas

Doctor - Patient : Selected for the BP Portrait Awards 2019 Portrait of Dr Krystyna Cywinska - Serafin, Oil on panel, 26.5 x 45 cm, 2019 This painting of Agata's mum, selected for the BPportrait award 2019, was on exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London from 13th June until 20th Oct 2019. it then went on tour to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh in December and was supposed to go to the Ulster Museum, Belfast in 2020. This last part was unfortunately cancelled due to the outbreak of Covid19 that year. It was painted a few months before this amazing lady passed away. She fought valiantly until the end, having had the last rights seven times in the year leading upto her death.

BP Portrait Award selected work and other portraits.

Finding a photo of himself that his father had kept in a wallet for over half a century was the starting point for a self-portrait later shortlisted for the Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Prize 2023. The photograph was worn and faded, as though it had been taken out and put back many times; it had to be reinvented in paint, over a thickly textured previous work, with a Portrait of Dorian Gray quality — never growing older in his father’s eyes.

Minime was the entry for Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year 2020. Recordings were due in April 2019; a death in the family meant withdrawing just before filming. The same work was later selected and highly commended in the Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Prize 2021.

Patient – Doctor was shown at Cass Art in Islington with other BP Portrait Award artists.

Galeria

Patient - Doctor Portrait of Dr Krystyna Cywinska - Serafin, Oil on panel, 26.5 x 45 cm, 2019 This sister painting to the work selected for the BP portrait award was painted during the same few weeks. It was later exhibited at CassArt in Islington, alongside works by 16 other 2019 BP portrait award exhibitors.

My Father Oil on unprimed linen, 2020. After one sitting Covid stopped any further sessions, I then continued the work from a few reference photos I had taken on the original sitting.

"Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man( after a photo found in his father's wallet after his death)" Shortlisted fot the Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize 2023 Mixed media on canvas, 20 x 60cm, 2023 Finding a photo of myself that my father had kept in his wallet for over half a century was extremely meaningful, especially as it was so worn and faded, as though it had been taken out and put back in many times. I had to reinvent it in paint. When painting I often start from a photographic reference then subvert it. They can be a starting point, the image can be reimagined by the materiality of paint, Thick impasto, thin glazes, scratched, scraped, enlarged, reduced all the time maintaing the images origin. Not, to make a photorealist copy of the photograph, but my personal reinterpretation, painted over a thickly textured previous work, I wanted to give it that Portrait of Dorian Grey quality, as I obviously never grew older in his eyes, kept hidden away in his wallet like his own personal attic.

Minime: Selected for the Ruth Borchard Self-portrait Prize 2021 (Highly Commended) Oil on wood panel, 4.8 x 5cm, 2019. This portrait was my entry for the Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year 2020, It and I were selected to take part in the programme. Recordings were in April 2019, unfortunately due to a death in the family, I had to withdraw from the programme just before filming began. Now it has also been selected for and highly commended in the Ruth Borchard Self-portrait Prize 2021.

Self Portrait With A Silly Clone (Hat) Oil on panel, 26.5 x 45.5 cm, 2018

The Actor Oil on canvas, 50 x 40 cm, 2019

Minime (enlarged) Oil on wood panel, 4.8 x 5cm, 2019 Selected and "Highly Commended" for the Ruth Borchard Portrait Prize 2021.

Collapse into Now (Serafin in R.E.M. Sleep) Oil on Canvas, 100 x 80cm. Sleep can be an escape, from the pressures, problems and worries of the present, into the dream state. Grief, depression and sadness can be forgotten. When R.E.M. occurs all is possible. In a year when both her mother and her best friend died, Serafin spent many hours in the comfort of blanket and duvet, hiding from those exact feelings. As is the case in many works of art, a beautiful image can have a darker undercurrent. Within the theme of "movement", the depiction of Serafin, in a state of Rapid Eye Movement (Sleeping) maybe too subtle, but she is using that state in order to try and move on, from the problematic feelings of the past into the now and eventually a happier future. We wish her well. The title "Collapse into Now" is also the title of an album by the band R.E.M.

Maciej in Leather & Lace I Oil on Canvas, 20 x 30cm, 2022.

Confinamiento, Cafeina momento Oil on unprimed linen, 54 x 81cm, 2021. Agata during "confinamiento" Spanish lockdown in 2020. I loved the strength of the light from the mediterranean sun.

Joy of Pigeons Oil on canvas

Krystyna Quick oil sketch on paper, 30 x 40 cm. 2019 This oil sketch was done in preparation for the work "Doctor-Patient" which was selected for the BP portrait award 2019. Agata's mum, in her bed in the hospice a few months before she passed away.