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Son Of War and Colin
Foley H64in W43in (H163cm W109cm) Incl box 28-12-96 Price £3,000 $4200 Acrylic on plywood From a photo by P.A. news photographer John Giles 29-3-96. What attracted my about this picture was the wonderful candid expression on the face of Son Of War contrasted with the dull disinterested demeanour of the hand, Colin Foley. I liked the challenge of painting a horse. It was my first animal and I didn't know whether I would be able to make it come alive. |
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| On that subject, the greatest
challenge for me in painting portraits, is to make the subject alive in the picture. I
really want the person or creature to be reincarnated. I only measure my success in doing
a portrait not by how accurately it represents the subject graphically but by how closely
it recreates the living breathing person. That is why I detest the set portrait. People in
set pieces look as if they have been disinterred from the grave. Their eyes are lifeless,
their expressions frozen in another time. Where is the joy, the laughter the cheeky smile,
the sad reflection in most portrait painting. The trouble is that too many portrait painters insist on live sittings. Can you imagine even the jolliest of people sitting for hours with an open mouthed laugh bursting from them. And yet that is how people should be painted - candidly revealing their true happy selves. I love painting people with toothy grins or shouts or expressions of aggression on their faces. Thank heavens for the magical freezing of expression possible with the camera. I could not have painted were it not for the life freezing power of the camera. Anyway, I also like painting teeth. The horse's teeth were a satisfying project. I hope horsy people will find my horse's teeth authentic as I had to do a bit of extrapolation to fill in blank spots here and there. And then there are the eyes. What expression. So I exaggerated the look and made them burn with the fire of the excitement bursting out of it. |
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