Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I've 'come out' as a painter of portraits since, for as long as I can remember, I have consistently made drawings of friends and occasionally painted pictures of them. My growing concentration on the activity really dates from the companion portraits commissioned by David and Shirley Cargill in 1976. These led me on to painting my mother as a way of spending more time with her. Then came infatuation with a particular face, which I suppose has been the cause of so many of the portraits in museums throughout the world. Over a period of about ten years I must have made almost a hundred images of Pella Erskine-Tulloch .
Painters are jealous of time, yet, like everyone else they want to see and talk to their friends.
I usually like to have sporadic conversation during sittings since it helps to keep the faces of subjects from lapsing into blankness. These exchanges also assert the difference between a sitter and a model. Portrait painting gives long and sustained intimacy especially if the artist is, like me, a slow worker who needs many sittings. As from some therapy there are withdrawal symptoms on the other side as well. Not everyone of course is willing to come twenty times to an untidy room in Peckham for what after all is quite hard work, yet those who do invariably tell me that they enjoy the experience.