Girls, Girls ...

A face can be the image of a time. In the 1960s was Twiggy the role model for an ideal belle. Girls dreamed to be as skinny and androgynous as her.


Since the 1990s Kate Moss is the paragon of beauty. Her style is copied from girls all over the world. Peter Lindbergh took this photograph in 1994. Maybe she stands in front of a stable or a shelter? In her overall she looks like a farmer or worker.


This portrait is a fashion statement and not a documentation of the American West like Richard Avedon’s girl. But both girls look like somebody from the countryside. Maybe Kate Moss´ expression is more impressive, because we are more used to look at her in commercials and advertisements. However it is only the background information that makes the difference between these two portraits. We have to believe that the subtitle is telling us about the person. Certainly we can take a closer look at the picture to find evidences of posing or artificiality. Even though we can scarcely distinguish illusion and reality.


Cindy Sherman is a perfect example for considering the substance of an image. She is always questioning herself in her portraits. She appears in various roles to find out about prejudices and female prototypes. Sherman is a master of disguise and costumes. If we did not know, that she is the one on the picture, would we realize it? The artist became famous for her “Film Stills”.
Her pictures are composed masterpieces, but I do not think that this makes her photographs less true than others. She is still telling a story. Maybe it is not an authentic one, but one who is transmitting a message or a feeling.

Sherman is always caught in a moment of action. Some picture could be an excerpt taken from a Hitchcock movie. You always feel the suspense: What will happen next? Who is the girl waiting for in the lonely outback? Is she expecting her lover or her murderer? What does she do there? But we do not need to be afraid, because the camera is with her.


Lauren Greenfield and Rineke Dijkstra convey the impression that they show real life. They portray young girls in their self-conflicts and process of self-discovery. These girls are mostly concerned about their bodies and their appearances. They are confronted with thin models and digital picture manipulation. Girls compare themselves with other girls and successful models in magazines. They do not want to be ordinary, but they also refuse to be too different than others.

If you look closer at these portraits then these questions arise: Am I beautiful? Does somebody admires me? Does somebody love me? Who am I? Who do I want to be? Do I satisfy my requirements?

Johan Andersson

Oil on canvas

Oil on canvas 110x90cm

"My portraits are a reflection of myself and visions which I get. My emotions are revealed in the eyes of the sitter and the techniques I employ compliment the honest moment which I aim to capture. I explore the theme of beauty and vulnerability in youth and I challenge certain ideas by distorting the figure, sometimes using turpentine to disrupt the surface of paint.

I am diversely spontaneous in the way I work the paint. I don't see any limits to painting nor do I limit myself as an artist. The portraits are full of intrigue in their subtle contradictions, giving them an ambiguous and awkward underlying tension. My work also challenges perceptions of beauty and identity. They lie somewhere in between dream and reality and they play with preconceptions, causing conflict between mind and reality thus creating a cognitive dissonance.

My faith as a Christian is key to my practice and drives me to travel and see different cultures and experience new things, giving me inspiration and growth. There is an intimacy between the portrait and the viewer in my work and I want to challenge what it means to be human, appreciate and be in awe of the subjects which I have chosen. Their diversity makes it fascinating to look at and be connected to them. I want the viewer to come as close as they possibly can to the portrait and for the portraits to be exposed."

Seren Jones

Mrs Clements Edmunds (a young Elizabeth) 2010, Oil on Canvas, 300x400

Untitled (German Woman), 2010, Oil on Canvas, 300x400

Women are a central theme in my work and I strive to create images using elements of classical painterly language, with a subtle contemporary, feminist twist. I explore classical painting and portraiture for inspiration and guidance when painting my portraits.

The conventional portrait painter seeks to create a visual record of a real person, however the women in my work are not based on one sitter they are a gathering of many different influences I have collected, from other people‟s faces (both male and female), other artwork, to pure imagination. In my pictures I bring the iconic and the nameless together to create someone that has never existed. This fabrication may mean these women are more like self-portraits than portraits.

Unlike most women in classical painting and contemporary media, who are often depicted merely as objects of male desire, I wish to paint women of a powerful nature. Their arresting gaze which actively seeks connections with their viewers, asking questions perhaps they cannot answer whilst also revealing a wealth of mysterious female narratives. Through the gaze their strength is exposed, yet it is of great importance that this “strength” is not interpreted as an acquired masculine quality, but that it is seen as their own “feminine” strength that belongs to them as women in their own right. These ladies all have their own stories. They inhabit floating worlds, ambiguous environments, which enhances their strange captivating virtues.

Costume is another important aspect of my paintings. Often I adorn the women in fantastical, colourful dress that suggest a more historical context yet, by using „abstract‟ accents, I add to their indefinable qualities. Their theatrical costume allows them to become other-worldly whilst also exposing some of their private selves to the viewer.

Through my exploration of women‟s aesthetic I wish to question the nature of female gender and beauty and the viewer and society‟s relationship to the work.

nathan james

Born in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, Canada, Nathan James currently lives and works in London, UK. Exhibiting extensively, James has had shows throughout North America and Europe. His work was also selected to show in SCOPE Miami in 2008 and 2009, SCOPE New York in 2006, and SCOPE London in 2005. James’ artworks, “The Sudden End Of The Misfit' (2008) and “Splank Thru” (2008), were chosen by fellow artist, Stuart Semple, for Semple’s first curatorial project “Mash Ups” in London, over the summer of 2008.

James’ photo based paintings of trendy youths are intervened by helpings of obnoxious neon slashes, cuts and splashes comprising of pop elements such as cartoons, graphics and text, to create his distinctive style. These combinations of techniques and styles collide as cartoon and plastic clash with James’ figurative flesh and bone elements.

With these paintings James explores the notion that mass media materialism can indeed fulfill some of their promises of leisure and enjoyment but at the cost of forfeiting some of the subjects’ humanity.

hynek martinec

Zuzana in Paris studio, acrylic on canvas 130x110 cm 2006-07

Edmund, tempera on board 75x65 cm 2007-8

Born in 1980 in the Czech Republic, Hynek Martinec lives and works in London. In 2005 he graduated from the Academy of Fine Art in Prague. As part of his studies he spent one term at Middlesex University, London (2002), and another at The Cooper Union, New York (2005). Martinec has shown in both national and international exhibitions at venues including Cosa gallery, London, National Portrait Gallery and Prague Biennale. He is represented in numerous private collections in Berlin, Vienna, Miami, New York, Prague (National Gallery) and London (British Museum - Department Prints and Drawings). He is the winner of the BP Young Artist Award in 2007 and 2008.

start thinking

The art of painting had for centuries the monopoly position for portraits until photography contested its place in the 19th century. It seems that photography won the race against painting the 20th century. Painting was demoted, because the photo applied as more realistic and true. One believed that painting could not catch the moment as exactly as photography. A photo emerges in a short instant. A painting takes a much longer time. This is why it is always under suspicion of glorification and idealization. However photography fights against the same upbraids, because of the digital picture manipulation. Thus original pictures of models or film stars gain higher attention than retouched ones.

The artists of this exhibition deal with the portrait in a multimedia way. Not only photography and painting compete but also films claims it place. Who of the three disciplines is most successful to show the personality and inner posture of a human being, if the individual is in the center of consideration?

Not only the face, but also the attitude, the gaze, the surrounding and the clothes provides information of somebody. Who are we looking at? What did this person achieve? Where does he or she live? What do they work? A portrait always questions the social, historical and symbolic context. The viewer searches for answers in the picture. At the same time it reminds him of his own transience and of the limitation of life. In the worldwide museums are hanging pictures of nameless portraits. Nobody knows who he or she is. Their identity is lost, but their picture remains.

Probably this is why myspace.com and facebook.com are so successful. One wants to catch attention. So he or she will not be forgotten. The democratization of new media makes it possible that nearly everybody is able to picture him or others. Everybody turns into a paparazzi and can be „shot“ as well. The digital flood of pictures is shown in these networks. Often people present themselves as they loved to be seen – with friends, fit bodies, on holidays in exotic countries or on a hot party. These pictures reflect the hedonism of our time. This is not about an inner state but rather about representation. In former times only the elite could afford a portrait. But also kings, emperors and Christian leaders wanted their ideal image, if they charged painters to hold down their countenance for the posterity. Nowadays as well in the past one wish seems to unify everybody – to be memorized. The aim of this exhibition is to show the struggle of the individual against oblivion.