Custom Portraits

(Nik and Sarah, 2020, oil and acrylic paint on canvas, 59.5 x 42 x 1.8 cm and The Art Handler, acrylic paint on mixed fabric, 298 x 146 cm)

I create custom realist portraits using oil and acrylic paint on canvas working from your chosen photographs, one of the ways I enjoy meeting people and listening to their stories. Creating a custom portrait is a collaborative experience between myself and my clients, I am open to experiment with materials, for example, to match your ideas. My portraits are unique interpretations of people with a heartfelt touch. They help bring life back to special memories and introduce genuine characters to any space.

“It really brightens the room in so many ways!” (Testimonial from Nik and Sarah)

My latest portrait, shown above, was created for my friends Nik and Sarah to celebrate their wedding this year which happened just before the second Covid-19 lockdown in the UK. Once upon a time, just over a year ago, they got engaged after climbing through ice caves in Iceland, as captured in the beautiful photo of them that I worked from to create this painting. An almost other-worldly image considering all the obstacles they overcame, like many other couples wanting to have a wedding in 2020, and how much the world has changed since that photo was taken...

Isolation Portrait Project

(From left to right: Amanda and Chelsea, 2020, layered colour pencil drawings on vellum paper, each at 21 x 29.7 cm).

A project launched online during the first Covid-19 lockdown in the UK whereby hand drawn portraits and more recently cyanotype portraits are created in isolation using selfies sent to the artist by the subjects.

“Selfies can be taken anywhere, anytime creating a proliferation of faces online inharmonious with the person's actual situation. I see this as a starting point for collage and free storytelling in my drawing.”

See original Instagram advert here

My latest faux painting commission shown above exists on the facade of a listed building in Spitalfields, London where I was asked by my client to create a continuation of the original aged and weathered stone. First photo shows the scene before I got to work and following photos show swipe the scene after I completed the job.

“Observing and respecting the character of existing places and buildings is key for me across all my projects. In some ways I see faux painting as intervention art, an act that extends existing stories, a subtle protest against the local backdrop of new building projects.”

The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe
Illustration integrated into video design and projected on stage, Sherman Theatre,Cardiff, Wales, December 2015.

In this project, I collaborated with video and projection designer Dick Straker for theatre director Rachel O’Riordan’s production of The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe. Combined with Straker’s glowing imagery created from original photography of made optical kinetics, I created bold and tactile digital collages alluding to landscapes developed from hand drawings and found imagery with the raw natural landscape of C.S. Lewis’s inspirational Irish homeland in mind. The gentle motions of the graphics in the video, when projected on stage, compliment the stage atmosphere and add to the excitement of the transitions between events, as the characters travel between the reality of the Professor’s House and the land of Narnia.

(1st image: original digital still of collage incorporated into the video design for the scene on the revival of character King Aslan. 2nd image: performance shot showing the scene of Mr Tumnus’ House with projection set in the background)