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Name: Katrina Walcott

School: Fortismere School

Town: Muswell Hill

County: London

Year: Year 13

Inspiration: Portraiture has always been an area of interest to me. I am fascinated by the idea of manipulating paint, as a medium on canvas, in order to replicate the essence and expression of a living, breathing form onto canvas. Portraiture as a mixture of perspectives intrigues me, as indeed, the challenge when painting a subject is that the portrait is successful from various perspectives. This being the subject’s perception of themselves, and how they want to be conveyed; the artist’s perception of the subject, and how they have chosen to portray them; and, of course, the viewer’s perception which is indeed based on the nature of the final piece. My inspirations are artists who have been able to create ‘truthful’ portraiture, on account that it satisfies all perspectives, while leaving some ambiguity thus room for interpretation. Such artists include the well-known Leonardo Da Vinci, Gerhard Richter and Lucian Freud; and the lesser-known Nathan Ford, Paul Wright and Francoise Nielly. Yet I acknowledge that I and other portrait artists can only ever begin to create a ‘true’ portrait, as ultimately, it remains up to the viewer to decide whether this attempt has been truly successful.

Title: Incomplete 'Jerome'

Description: In this piece I have attempted to produce a portrait which encapsulates my own personal belief of what ‘true’ portraiture is, this being something unfinished, as left for the viewer to fill in the gaps so to speak. This portrait was painted from a series of photos of which I thought genuinely captured my brother in a fit of laughter; the vibrancy of his expression I have attempted to show in the erratic strokes of paint with the palette knives, while the intimacy of the perspective and connection with the subject (my brother) allowed for the more refined strokes of colour with brush marks around the eyes. There are areas to be worked into which I have purposely left unfinished, such as the shirt and background, which for me leave a perfect sense of imperfectness, denoting to both the personality of my brother Jerome and me as an amateur artist attempting this style.

Medium: Oil on canvas (impasto style)

Width: 90 Height: 90

Keywords: Colour, portrait, impasto, expressionism, realism