Single Portraits - The Royal Society of Portrait Painters

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Royal Society of Portrait Painters

4 weeks ago

What have all of you artists been doing during lockdown? 🎨

Nneka Uzoigwe, exhibiting artist at the RP exhibition, focused on a brand new self-portrait:

“During lockdown I had to move my work from my art studio to my bedroom. At first I felt overwhelmed by having to leave behind the larger projects I had planned.

What I didn’t anticipate, was that this lockdown self-portrait would become the first in a line of exploratory female portraits I had wanted to create this year. It was a breakthrough moment for me, combining all the elements and thought processes I have been juggling around for quite some time, as well as understanding my own painting style more. Having a project like this during lockdown has been amazing. I woke up excited every day, eager to push on with this painting in front of the mirror.

This self-portrait represents a daydream, exploring the twilight zone of one’s day, imagination and solitude. The painting is also a play on the idea of a portrait being a looking glass into all of the different elements a person carries privately with them. It reminds me of a quote from one of my favourite films ‘Stoker’ – “I'm not formed by things that are of myself alone. I wear my father's belt tied around my mother's blouse, and shoes which are from my uncle. This is me. Just as a flower does not choose its colour, we are not responsible for what we have come to be.”

Playing with the spirit of the symbolic, I have elements of home – wrapped in my night dress and partners robe, I have Dicentra (bleeding-heart) from the garden laced in my hair, pears from my fruit bowl. In one pear there’s a secret door, from which hangs a gold thread, like in the tale of Theseus and the Minotaur, leading down to another self who is skipping into the night wearing her Cornflower (blue diadem) and holding her moon in a jar."

Tag us in your lockdown creations, stories, self-portraits or anything that is inspiring you as an artist in these uncertain times! ... See MoreSee Less

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