Yesterday in the artist's studio

Some pictures from yesterday when I ventured into the artist's studio again......

This is very much a work in progress, a constantly evolving record of a space in a state of flux. It has no natural beginning nor end and I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do with the images. I'll probably make them into a book at some point in the future but I also think it would be a nice idea to show them together with some of the paintings that were created in the space. A possible future husband/wife collaboration?

All paintings copyright Mike Newton

Growing old in front of the camera

There was a book published last year which really made an impression on me. Mother and Father by Paddy Summerfield is a poignant documentation of the photographer's elderly parents and their last decade of life together. Mostly shot through the window of their home, the black and white photographs show the couple either working or relaxing in their garden, together yet separate in that companionable way people have after a lifetime spent together, the mother often lost in her own private world, the father tenderly attentive. These are quiet, unspectacular photographs made with love and concern, so distant from the frantic posturing and self regard of much of the contemporary photography world. According to critic Sean O'Hagan they are "a reminder of the power of a certain kind of photographic attentiveness that has become increasingly hard to find in an age of manipulated image-making." You can read his review here.

  All photographs above by Paddy Summerfield

Intensely personal yet with universal appeal at the same time, they set me thinking about my own parents. My mother died last year, yet I have few photographs of her in her final years as she steadfastly refused to have her picture taken. I suspect this is quite a common occurrence and that in comparison to the large numbers of photographs taken of a person in the span of their lifetime, their old age probably remains sparsely documented. Perhaps the odd snap taken with family at Christmas or other celebrations, but the day to day minutiae of their lives are not often deemed worthy or interesting subjects. 

It is too late now for me to portray my parent's life together - the final reminder I have of my mother is a photograph of her sitting in the sun in the hospital garden, taken a couple of weeks before she died when she was too ill to notice or mind that I had taken a picture......

The Artist's Studio

"What would we not give to peer over the shoulder of Giorgione or Vermeer  - or Francis Bacon? In an age that has lost its natural sense of the numinous, we half believe that we could be the witness of a form of magic. And it is not only the enactment of that magic that so compels us; the place in which it is performed may be charged with a presence that compounds the spell. To enter the studio of Giacometti was to walk, like Alice, through the Looking-Glass, into a realm that seemed to change the scale of your own body; to find your way across the floor of Kitaj’s studio that is strewn with open books like paving stones in a Japanese garden is to step into the silent discourse of centuries between artist and artist; and to be invited into Brancusi’s lair at 11 Impasse Ronsin was to cross the threshold into a space that was itself a work of art in which sculptures of polished brass, white plaster and rough-hewn wood had been disposed in groups under the calm white light from high windows – a temple of trophies through which you moved as in a trance. In each case a way of working had moulded from within its own aura." 

          From The Artist at Work by Colin St John Wilson

These photographs are from a project about the artist's studio on which I've been working intermittently over the last year. I am lucky enough to have access to an artist's studio right here at home, where my husband works and produces his paintings and drawings. It is a fascinating place and offers different photographic opportunities virtually ever time I cross the threshold. The constant state of flux creates interesting and unusual juxtapositions of images as new work replaces work in progress or a finished piece. At times portraits seem to communicate with one another, at times willfully turning away, sometimes caught in a shaft of light, at other times expressions hidden in the shadows.   

I usually do my photographing there when the space is empty as I don't like to intrude. The studio is usually regarded as a place of sanctuary, a personal space which is not be invaded. In addition, I make it a rule never to disturb anything - I tend to prefer photographing what I come across rather than staging my pictures - and for me the serendipity of finding a ready-made still life is one of the great pleasures of photography. 

The images in this selection are all to do with the gaze - the painter's gaze of course, but also the gazes exchanged between the subjects of the paintings and their gaze as they look out at the viewer, as well as the viewer's gaze at both the paintings and the photographs. Gaze upon gaze upon gaze.....

To be continued........

All paintings copyright Mike Newton

A sea of faces

Last week I made my annual pilgrimage to the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery. I very rarely do portrait work myself but I still find images of the human face endlessly fascinating. It is often said that a good portrait should reveal something of the subject's character but in reality looks can be deceptive and it is a bit simplistic to draw evidence of a person's inner life from their outer appearance. It's more likely that looking at a portrait reinforces our sense of what it means to be human: we may get a feeling of identification and empathy or sometimes the complete opposite - antipathy and alienation, or we may like to attach our own narrative to the picture on show.

I usually approach this show with mixed feelings and inevitably feel let down when my favourites fail to win a prize! Without exception every year I find the reasoning behind some of the judges' choices unfathomable - why some were picked and others ignored - but as always with photography and art in general, preference is entirely subjective. The exhibition attracts a huge number of entries and the selection process is entirely anonymous. The successful entrants range from  professional photographers submitting highly polished work commissioned by newspapers and magazines through to students and amateur photographers.

On display are the usual suspects - wan and miserable young people staring balefully into the camera, a sprinkling of glossy sports stars and celebrities, some of staggeringly huge proportions where every pore and hair is magnified, and a couple of provocative nudes including some children, which given current issues surrounding child welfare I found rather surprising! I felt that some hardly ranked as a portrait at all and seemed more like a figure in the landscape, so small in the frame did the person appear. In amongst this lot however were some gems - a beautiful and quietly dignified portrait of a girl with Down's Syndrome, a Libyan migrant worker caught through a rain-streaked bus window, an African boy framed by the natural light streaming into a dark schoolroom - all really strong and memorable images. Unfortunately none of these images seem to be available on the web but here are some of the prize winners and a few others that caught my eye....

1st prize winner: Margarita Teichroeb by Jordi Ruiz Cirera  

 2nd prize winner: Lynne, Brighton by Jennifer Pattison

 Lola Smoking from the series Off the Set by Alice Pavese Fiori

Michael Stipe by Matthew Lloyd

Kitty, Christine and Kira by Lydia Panas

Gillian Wearing by Robin Friend from the series Sanctuary: Artists and their Studios

Julie Hill by Peer Lindgreen

Hilary Mantel by Michael Birt

The exhibition runs until 17th February 2013 - details here.  All images copyright the artist.