National Portrait Gallery, Portrait Awards 2016

I look at this exhibition every year.  I love portraits and like to see what types of people are portrayed.

This year, there was very little colour in the images.  Lots of muted shades of neutrals. As usual only about 6 really appealed to me.

Joshua Waterhouse - The Weaver

I don't usually like hyper-realism, but this was an image of a mature woman, with the wrinkles of a care-worn face clearly defined.  I loved it.  She was a highly skilled hand weaver, and was wearing a hand woven scarf, while sitting in a chair made by her furniture maker father.  I loved the depiction of these objects.  Also the artist had included a section where he had made a most detailed painting of a self portrait that she had woven.  Fantastic.  His website shows the image in detail.  I have decided not to lift any images from this exhibition, for copyright reasons.

Charlie Masson - Diversion.  The most impressionistic portrait in the show.  Simply drawn self portrait in the reflection on his phone, along with the interior of a room.  Very modern, very contemporary.

Brett Amory - Jijinka.  Very large (8' high?) painting of a male to female transexual.  A very ordinary careworn woman.  I like representation of all parts of our society.

William Neukomm - Katrina.  Absolutely brilliant head and shoulders portrait of a young black woman.    Strength, dignity and composure all conveyed by the erect manner of sitting and gaze.  Brilliant.

Laura Guoke - Petras.  Won the BP Travel Award.  A black and white image of a man with his hands over his mouth.  I suspect he was Greek.  She will use the award to go to the Greek Lesbos refugee camp, and will probably make some challenging portraits.  This project looks like it may go back the role of the original war artists - revealing uncomfortable realities which Government officialdom may prefer not to be seen.  I very much look forward to seeing the output next year.

Magali Cazo, won the 2015 Travel Prize and went to Burkina Faso.  She created some wonderful portraits of the black indigenous population, with use of high turquoise and scarlets - the colours of the clothes and land.  Her sketchbooks - concertina fold moleskins - were WONDERFUL.  It occurred to me that they could have been created from composite sketches from her travels.  The sketchbooks were a bit too wonderful to have been made on the road, but were a fantastic documentation of what she saw.