This month, a show of portraits opens at The Jam Factory by two Oxford-based artists, Tom Croft and Mark Haddon. Putting on an exhibition of portraits is a first for author Mark Haddon who is best known for his writing which includes the best-selling novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, and it is clear he is talented painter, illustrator and print-maker working with acrylics, linoprints, gouache and etchings.
There’s a literary thread throughout the portraits on show: Mark appears twice, in lino self-portrait and in an oil painting by Tom Croft. Mark has also painted Paul Farley (“one of my favourite living poets”); Sunetra Gupta (who, in addition to being a novelist, is a Professor of Zoology); the poet Simon Armitage; Simon Stephens the playwright who adapted The Curious Incident of The Dog in the Night for stage and became a good friend in the process; Jackie Kay, the third modern ‘Makar’ or Scottish poet laureate; the novelist Molly McGrann and Summertown-based Ted Dewan, an energetic award-winning writer and illustrator for children whose ‘Bing’ books were turned into a popular CBeebies TV show.
‘I never think about ‘capturing’ a subject in the same way that I never think about ‘capturing’ a room, or a face, or a landscape, or a meal when I write,’ says Mark. ‘I try to get the lines and colours right in the same way that I try to get the words right on the page. I find that if you get the mechanical stuff right – the lines, the colours, the words – if you produce a picture or a page which looks confident and right, the bigger stuff – character, atmosphere, mood – looks after itself. Likeness is important, up to a point. But it’s not what makes a picture work.’
‘Ted Dewan’s face was easy. It was his shed which posed the problem! He works surrounded by the usual illustrator’s clutter plus a large amount of antique dental equipment. All this stuff seemed to express his character just as much as his expression, his posture, his clothes. But how do you fit all that into a rectangle? I took several hundred pictures of Ted at work and the final drawing was based on a composite image of over fifty photographs stuck together so that I could squeeze everything in.’
‘As for the large triptych of Molly McGrann, it’s like writing a sex scene in a book. When you’re deep in the work you forget that it’s going go out into the world and be read by other people. Similarly, when you’re painting a picture you forget that it’s got to hang on a wall somewhere. Shall I go bigger? Why not! The painting was originally in a single sheet which I stored in the loft for several years because it was the only room in the house with enough floorspace. Only when this exhibition loomed did I have to bite the bullet and chop it into three parts. Luckily, it seemed to work rather well.’
Mark has also included four monochrome drawings of his father, one of which has just been selected for the Royal Society of Portrait Painters 2017 open show, alongside a very colourful portrait of Judith White, an amazing nurse who helps care for him.
As portrait painter for a living, Tom is commissioned by people to paint portraits, for any number of reasons: colleges documenting the achievements of a fellow, parents wanting something more significant than family holiday snaps, or people marking a particular birthday, and so on.
‘With a commission you obviously have to paint who the client wants and not deviate too much from the style they liked in your work which lead them to commission. Children are the hardest to paint as less evidence of life shows on their faces, which in turn gives me less clues anatomically to work with. Babies are surely the hardest subject for portraits on that basis,’ explains Tom.
‘When I paint for myself, I choose people or faces in particular that interest me for whatever reason and that also allow me to try new techniques. They allowed me to be experimental with my mark making as they weren’t precious about the end results.
‘All the people I have chosen to show in this exhibition,’ he continues, ‘have faces I felt were expressive or told a story. There was a bus driver once I wish I had asked to paint, because he had a face that just stopped me in my tracks. His life seemed to be written all over it.
‘I also like to paint a person if their story has had an impact on me. For example, I went to Africa in October, with a journalist friend who wanted to show me and my family both sides of Kenya. While we were there, he took us to Kibera in Nairobi, Africa’s biggest urban slum. We met Octopizzo, a huge hip-hop star who was born there and he walked us through the slum and showed us how people live there. Despite many serious daily challenges what struck us was how overwhelmingly positive and happy everyone was, which in turn made me realise how patronising it is to assume they might want to swap it all for something closer to my own lifestyle. Having said that, I want to help raise awareness of Kibera, as many other people are doing too.
As Octo looked out over the kilometres of sprawling tin huts and shacks he looked regal, surveying his land. On the one hand he had huge pride in what he’s achieved to get out of the slum, but he still wants to be a regular presence there to raise people’s aspirations of what’s possible. I asked if I could take some photos to base a painting on when I got back to Oxford and I’ve sent him a print of the portrait which he seems to love and as a result I now have some fantastic new people from another world following me on Twitter!’
The full exhibition, Portraits, runs from 7th March to 9th April at The Jam Factory, Hollybush Row, Park End Street, Oxford OX1 1HU www.thejamfactoryoxford.com
To see more about Mark Haddon he recommends you follow him on Twitter @mark_haddon.
For more information on Tom Croft visit http://www.thomascroft.co.uk.
Tom will be opening his studio for Oxfordshire Artweeks (32 Home Close, Wolvercote; venue 454) from 20th-29th May
First published in the Oxford Times Limited Edition magazine March 2017.
Esther Lafferty's Inkwell 