Exercise: Commission a Portrait, Part 4, Project 2

Pastel drawing of my husband for Drawing I

For this exercise, I have to imagine that I am  commissioning a portrait of someone and I have chosen myself. I have already commissioned two professional portraits of my husband and have even attempted to get a good likeness by drawing him myself for the Drawing I course (left), so I'd like to see what an artist would make of me as the subject. Why? Well, doing the research exercise for Project 2 on why artists make self-portraits was a great help in thinking about why I would want a portrait of anyone, (see post dated June 3rd, 2014), and I was particularly struck by Chagall's 1911 painting "I and the Village" (see below right) where the artist incorporated scenes from his early life in Russia with symbols of Christianity and folklore to bring together memories of his childhood, in a Cubist style. Would I want this portrait to bring back memories? 

Chagall: I and the Village, 1911

I was also struck by aspects of Courbet's "The Painter's Studio - A Real Allegory of a Seven Year Phase in my Moral and Artistic Life" (1855) where he includes many of the people who have influenced his artistic life. Do I want my portrait to say something of the people/ideas/events that have influenced my life?

Courbet: The Painter's Studio - A Real Allegory... ,1855

Do I want this portrait to say anything of my inner self, or just to be "the glove" that Dali describes, which concentrates on the recognisable characteristics that define what I look like at this age and stage? Does immortalising myself in canvas and paint come into this? And how about the style? I have so many photographs of myself that I definitely don't want a photo-realist image with every pore visible. Mmmm.....complex, when you get down to it. I want there to be included something of Courbet's idea of the influences in my life with some of Chagall's storytelling but in the style of David Hockney when he was experimenting with photo-montage or that of the Dadaist Hannah Hoch (below) with her combination of newspaper cuttings, photographs and print.

Hannah Hoch: Self-Portrait 1971

Hoch produced a collage towards the end of her life (left, 1971) which included photos of her at various ages. Good idea but very busy. I would want her to include some references to a country I have lived and worked in - the more than twenty five years I spent in India, Turkey, Canada and Holland - and the influences/freedoms I have enjoyed being born in the latter half of the 20th century. I would like this portrait to celebrate life in general and my life in particular, but to be selective - not as busy as the collage on the left - perhaps more like "Roma" below.

Hoch, Roma 1925

   
I definitely want her to understand how much I enjoyed the visual impact enjoyed in countries where life is lived outdoors - the colours, the sounds, the light, the aromas and the flora and fauna of these areas (especially India and Istanbul, but also the winter blue-sky-white-snow- blinding-brightness of Canadian winters) and how they have formed such a rich tapestry of memories for me. But including all of these place is difficult, so I have decided I want my portrait to be a memory of 2005-2012 and to concentrate mainly on my time in India.

My photo images to help Hannah Hoch

To help, I am going to give Hannah a small sheet of images from my photo collection that she can look at and make reference to in her work, but I don't want to dictate the final work - and I definitely don't want her to include everything. I am excited to see what she makes of it. Just creating the contact sheet of images gives me a good idea of the colours I would like to see in the final portrait.
There should be the blues of the sky and the ocean; the purples/pinks/oranges of the sunset; the dark contrasts between indoors and outdoors and the filtered light through elaborate stonework; the greens of the palms and the pinks/oranges of the bougainvillea; the warmth of the skin tones and the contrast of the saris. It should exude calmness - it is the sounds of the early mornings and sunsets that stay with me when I think of my home in India, not the frenetic roads and bustling stations that are part of every city anywhere on the planet.

 

What she chooses to do with the images is the exciting part. I don't want a portrait that is so predictable that there is no mystery, and I would like the result to be one that holds my interest for a long time.
 

David Tierney Self-Portrait 1985

A painting on my wall at home in London (below) is one I bought in Canada from David Tierney. It is a self-portrait, in colour tones that I really enjoy. There are a lot of warm tones, but with lots of blue. I will hope that Hannah picks up on the theme of the pictures I have given her as nature-history-spirituality-health and that they tell her a little about the things which give me pleasure.


Perhaps Hannah will come up with something like this photomontage (below), which I have made using cut and paste technique and Adobe Photoshop, as an example of how she might incorporate various images from my memory bank into a portrait of my time in India. I shall call it "Journey" as it represents many changes I had to go through in order to work and live happily in such a different culture. Many of these are changes of routine, change of workplace, change in diet, change in dress - what I would call "easy" changes, many of which we all make when going on holiday - but the really challenging changes are those that involve changes in attitude and those that involve managing to remain upbeat and optimistic when missing people/things and living with a degree of isolation in a very different culture. I hope Hannah Hoch can allude to the psychological and behavioural "journey" that I have gone through while in my years in India.

The mock-up of "Journey" which I made from my photos, to celebrate the years of living and working and India.

I have really enjoyed this exercise. It made me smile; and it made me ask a lot of questions about what I would want to be included in a portrait, helping me focus on what the important elements are that would give me satisfaction.

I cannot imagine not enjoying whatever my chosen portraitist, Hannah Hoch, comes up with, but if anything would disappoint me it would be if she produced a work that was very small. I would like this to be large, at least 1m x 1.5m and I hope she incorporates a mixture of media.