20 artistMay 2020 http://www.painters-online.co.uk????????????
S
ky Portrait Artist of the Year
is a TV competition in which
artists paint portraits, judged
by Kathleen Sorriano, Kate
Bryan and Tai Shan Schierenberg. The
programme is presented by Steven
Mangan and Joan Bakewell and I
applied to take part in 2019 for the
2020 edition, filmed at the Battersea
Arts Centre. The artists come from all
sorts of contexts; students, professional
portrait painters, people who go to art
classes, and simply artists.Preparations
The first day of filming was at the
beginning of April. My wife Anna and I
woke up at 5am. She’d offered to drive
and give me moral support, which was
a great relief. I’d only had a fitful sleep
anyway. Breakfast, load the car with my
kit, put Battersea Arts Centre’s addressCompetition fever
Charles Williams shares his experiences as a contestant in this
year’s Sky Portrait Artist of the Year competition
into the phone. At 5.30 we wondered
whether our friend Angela was going
to turn up, and just then she appeared
outside the house.
Angela was thrilled that I was taking
part. She and her daughter Molly watch
it together obsessively, discussing how
the different artists will cope. She was
eager to be part of the live audience.
In order to prepare for my appearance,
Angela had invited us to watch some
episodes with her and her husband
Kevin – he is a great mixer of cocktails.
It’s an hour and a half from our house
to Battersea. I had to be there at 7.
at the latest. Some weeks earlier, a
charming young woman had called from
the film company and we spent ages
talking. She described the details of the
day, and it began to seem real: the four
hours that the contestants have in which
to complete their portrait, the way wewould be questioned and engaged
through the day, the rituals of judging.
I am not a portrait painter. A regular
reader of my Musings in The Artist might
even remember an article in which I
questioned the whole point of portrait
painting. I can ‘capture a likeness’ and I
spent a long time in the life room at the
RA Schools and elsewhere, but I would
never describe myself as a portrait
painter.
How to approach it? I had been
exploring a linear approach to my
painting, unlike my usual tonal method,
to see how painting in a different way
would affect its content and meaning.
The self-portrait with which I applied to
the show was very linear, flatly-coloured
and rapidly painted. I asked my friend
Steve Foy Philp to sit for me the week
before (page 21), so I could work out
how I would approach the problem.