The Final Of Portrait Artist Of The Year 2018
I think the three finalists were incredibly fortunate in having Emili Sande as their subject. She's got a "good head" and was incredibly still for four hours. I made notes while watching. Danny and Samira gridded up - the latter for the first time. Hetty just stuck to her routine of starting with the eyes and getting those right and working out from there, measuring by eye as she went.
Samira worried about using the grid as it seemed to throw out her timings. She looked quite tense and troubled by time. In terms of who produced the best portrait - in Emili Sande's view it was Hetty. I liked the portraits produced by both Hetty (best likeness) and Danny - some lovely painting of skin tones, which is clearly something he is very good at. There were a dozen artists working from a video of Emili Sande in a nearby room - with the winner promised a pass to the next series.
To be honest, I wasn't impressed by most of what I saw. It occurred to me that these might be the reserve painters who could fill in at the last minute at a Heat if somebody dropped out or got sick. I wish they'd given more time to the Commissions.
If the decision is supposed to be based on both why not give them equal time, Interestingly the judges didn't see the commissioned portraits until the portrait painting in 4 hours had been completed. Danny was generally considered by the Judges to be a 'safe pair of hands' and 'very reliable' and 'very commissionable'.
Kathleen found his portrait of Emili to be incredibly competent. His treatment of Emili's hair was a 'tour de force'. Kate really liked some beautiful passages of paint in her portrait. Tai felt it was a bit prosaic and lacking in poetry. Tai liked how his vision was so much larger and the finesse was more accomplished when given more than four hours for a portrait. Kate was very taken by all the tools. Kathleen was impressed by how he had captured vivacity and energy in the face and expresses who the sitter is as a man.
In my view, Danny's was the largest and most complete of all the portraits of Emili and the only one to bring in a lot more than a head and shoulders perspective. He'd made the best use of the time and had adjusted his normal way of painting to achieve this without losing control over his brushwork.
Personally speaking I found Danny's commission the most professional and by far the most impressive in terms of "most likely to be asked to do a portrait commission for the National Portrait Gallery" - in the very near future! Their view was that Samira was the biggest risk of the three but that she played with colour and colour contrast and her portrait of Emili had captured the spirit of the person she was representing.
All three were impressed by Samira's treatment of Zandra Rhodes, the tilt of the head, the mouth open (only possible when painting from a photo!), leaving passages of orange in her face. Tai found it breathtaking. Kate said they wanted somebody exciting and different and that's what she got from these paintings.
In my view while the approach to painting is interesting and distinctive, Samira's portrait of Emili was the most incomplete of the three. Yet again, there was lots of white space - as in unpainted canvas. There has been no attempt at context at any stage during the competition. The Judges felt Hetty had chosen a phenomenal angle when painting Emili and really found the look in Emili's eye - but they wanted to see her produce more from the poise. They felt she had got the best likeness and had consistently achieved the best likeness in every round.
