‘Man’ Collection

You wouldn’t believe me when I say I got my inspiration for these portraits on my train journey home two Saturday afternoon’s ago – but I did!

I love those kind of in the moment things, and thankfully I had a friend with me on the train who sat through my crazy, whilst I verbally brainstormed and yet clearly make no sense to anyone but myself.

It’s beautiful though, when an idea comes like that. And it’s even more of a blessing to see that idea come into fruition with my own bare hands.

This is what has led to a series of portrait paintings with a state-the-obvious title: “Man” Collection.

I wanted to paint men. Initially, all of them with beards of various shapes and kinds, if I must confess. But then as I started building the structure of the first face, figuring out what elements I wanted to distinguish, and I began to see how building each face led me to story tell.

I saw that the story behind the face mattered so much more…

Each man had character and depth. As I applied each stroke, and seriously, I really did do this, I asked questions like, “Why are his eyes so weary?” “What has he been thinking about?” “What’s going on in his life at the moment? And even in the world around him?” And thus W. E. Justice was created.

Kwesi was created similarly.

You all helped me with a name for him. I did a poll on Twitter and I asked you all on Instagram to help me choose between #TeamKwesi and #TeamDesmond. I couldn’t decide on a name and both Kwesi and Desmond suited his face and his character quite well.

These paintings helped me to also see how high God is in the sense that He thought through each and every person who is right now presently living on this Earth in absolute and complete detail. Even before we reached the surface of this Earth, He knew how we would be, what we would experience and what those experiences will mould us into being.

God made no mistakes with us. But I love how He used my mistake with this next portrait to show just how perfect He is and that what may seem like a fault to us is precisely what God has intended to make someone unique.

The name Scar wasn’t coincidental. As well as my friend thinking he looks like Scar from The Lion King, his name has another meaning.

On closer observation, you’ll notice that Scar has a different technique to the portraits before him. By this time of the night I was so eager to continue in building these faces that I didn’t wait for his background to finish drying completely. I had added a lot more paint to his background, which meant when it came to mixing and added extra colours on his neck and jaw area, it almost looks like I was calving into his face rather than building up on top of it by creating layers.

I’m grateful that this little flaw was almost turned into a sort of selling point for his portrait. As a reoccurring theme throughout this entire collection, painting Scar wasn’t about painting a perfect man – it was about sharing a piece of life, just one factitious human being’s story at a time. With this in mind, you can use whatever imagination you have to predict what happened to him – I’d say those scars look like burn scars…

Oh my days, truth be told this was my least favourite portrait to paint. Another truth to be told is that beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder. I’ll let you in on a little secret – Melanin Mister nearly didn’t meet the cut in this collection. He brought out such a frustration in me, I left him several times to paint the next two men.

One of the things that makes these portraits unique is that I never once used white. In all six canvases I wanted to celebrate colour. But reflecting upon Melanin Mister particularly, it was clear that to bring out the dark in anyone’s skin, light has to reflect on the surface. I used yellow ochres and cold reds to bring out certain points where the natural light around him would hit his skin but in my opinion, I don’t think it brought his face and features out as well as it could. Stubbornly, I refused to use white paint because I didn’t want white to wash out any bold colours I had already applied. But we’ll see, I may just work on him a bit more and possibly… possibly share my improvements with you all…

Contrastingly, Uchenna here happens to be my favourite portrait of the entire collection. He has the right background colour of purple, which lifts his tones right off his face. I got the balance right with the lights and darks in this portrait – he almost radiates! He was probably the most simplest man to paint, I suppose by then I had had enough practice.

Barbershop Man followed suit by mid-week as I was still in two minds about sharing Melanin Mister with the world.

Barbershop Man was unintentionally made slightly older than the men before him. I worked with it though and began to create a man of experience who loves creativity and colour and is a fine craftsman who is wise and has learnt diligence from his long working life.

I believe that Barbershop Man should quite literally be hanging in a quaint East London barbershop… Just saying, shout me if you know any that fit the vision…

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Original art is a thing of patience and believing in yourself. This gift is something I need to continuously steward. It’s a skill I’ve found needs to continuously be worked, nurtured and refined so it can grow. Honestly, it is all from God. To be able to build faces on a canvas based on questions I ask myself and my general knowledge on colour mixing is truly, truly an amazing blessing from God and an excuse to celebrate men in art!

I still give God thanks!

We are made in His Image! I create because He first created, what an honour!

This is my first collection of paintings ladies and gents! One collection of many to come. I’m already working behind the scenes on two more collections simultaneously, which will be revealed to you all in the autumn months of this year. I have three or four more, which are in the planning pipe works right now, so I invite you to please stay tuned if you’re interested and you love what I produce.

Hopefully I’ll be merging my painting world with my writing world a lot more often than I have been. It’s been quite… nice… to write about my artwork =).

Until next time folks!

Truly,

G