The exhibition Heads Up at OREXART in Putiki Street gives notice of what’s up for their year and also what’s happening with portrait painting in 2020.
The portraits assembled range from the impeccably described, doe-eyed waif of Sarah Dolby’s Yellow, to Philippa Blair’s Headways II, a tangled interior of black intersecting lines contained within a field of red and green. While Dolby concentrates skilfully on the exterior surface of what we can see, Blair delves below the visage in an attempt to make visible the emotions within. Peter Wichman teases out plenty of character with a few deft touches of oil paint, and Paul Jackson merges histories directly on the skin of his subjects.
The self portrait is central to Richard McWhannell’s practice, so it’s entirely fitting that a giant face of his floats on a blue background at the end of the gallery. The pale blues, pinks and greys of flesh tones and the slightly parted mouth provide a contemplative air which is undercut by the very direct stare of the artist gazing at us as we gaze at him. The central face in his more playful painting,
A Picture for Oum Kalthoum (Google comes in handy to inform me this refers to an Egyptian singer and actress from the 1920s-70s) is surrounded by mysterious narratives and lovely colour relationships.
Joon Hee-Park also uses the self portrait as a way of mapping her world. Her figure does not fill the canvas, but interacts with a collection of strange spirit animals in light-filled landscapes. While many of these seem surreal or sourced from manga, I think we can all relate to the cat neatly folded atop her head. In the age of the selfie, cats rule supreme. (Evan Woodruffe/Studio Art Supplies)