The project ealingfaces began with a desire to create a series of portraits that would form a coherent family of pictures. I am interested in looking at painting from the point of view of an installation. With an installation the spectator often experiences the piece by physically entering into its space. With a painting the spectator generally stays outside of the picture (at least physically), unless the whole work consists of several paintings that frame a room. Examples of this can be seen in the series of murals Mark Rothko originally created for New York’s Four Seasons restaurant or Gerhard Richter’s Cage series.

I am interested in exploring ways in which an installation of paintings can manipulate the atmosphere of a room, and thus invite the spectator to physically enter the work.

I chose Ealing because this is where I live and work.  I put up ads for volunteers and was delighted by how many people came forward. I had far more volunteers than I was able to paint. I did not select the sitters but painted them on a first come first serve basis. I did not try to make this representative of the different communities who live in Ealing but rather a random handful of people who happened to have walked past my ad.

The volunteer sitters came to my studio at OPEN Ealing for one or two days and I painted them from life during intense fast-paced sessions.

All the pictures from this series will also be available to purchase as posters and canvas prints on Saatchi Online for the duration of the exhibition.

 Many thanks to all who took part!