charlotte harris

Untitled

Another amazing piece from the BP portrait award by Charlotte Harris, who was actually the same age as me when she won the award in 2003. I absolutely love this piece - again I think it is the gaze in the image, the fact that she is looking off the canvas and has such a perculiar expression on her face that it provokes a lot of questions. Again, she has used a very similar colour pallette to Elmsley, deep pastel colours but less grey. To me she also looks very sad, it makes me want to meet her and ask her about her life, I want to know how she came to be where she is now and where she has been. Her eyes are so well painted that I feel like she is deliberately not looking at me, the viewer. There is obviously a comfortable relationship between the artist and sitter, which is why it is not surprising that she is Harris's gran. I definitely can't just paint or draw a portrait without knowing the sitter, there needs to be a connection and feelings between the two people to obtain a portrait with depth and emotion. I also think that you can't paint a portrait without having a conversation with the person you are painting because then you are merely recreating what you see in front of you, rather than capturing the spirit of another human being using art.
I have also done a portrait of my gran, Maureen, and the reaction to it was extremely interesting, especially from close members of the family. There was definitely a sense of history in her face, you could see the similarities of her sons in her eyes.

Maureen