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child and adult portraits and strange but beautiful paintings
Naomi as an exotic princess
oil on canvas 2002-3
Naomi C as an exotic princess
Oil on canvas, 22x18 inches, Martin Dace 2002.
This painting was shortlisted for the first ever Daily Mail
Not the Turner Prize - 2003
Once again my friend Naomi patiently poses for me. She was Alice in my through the looking glass painting some years ago, and a 1997 portrait of her is here.
The idea for the painting came from the copper headress that Naomi had made herself in metalwork at school. I made a Greek peplos from a length of linen fastened at the shoulders with brooches.
We set up a mirror so that she could see the painting progressing. She made a number of useful comments along the way.
'Not the Turner Prize' is a competition sponsored by the Daily Mail newspaper to promote, in the Daily Mail's words, "real art." This painting, a gentle portrait of a young girl, is one of only 400 paintings selected to be exhibited out of 10,000 entries. All the shortlisted paintings appeared in small reproductions on page 80 of the Daily Mail Weekend magazine (31 May), and were exhibited at The Mall Galleries 7-14 June 2003.
Painting for me is a necessity. My aim is to produce beauty rather than to shock, so I am out of sympathy with the art sponsored by the Establishment today.
The best portraits are those in which the painter sees and paints what is best in the sitter. Sometimes a good painting may even persuade the sitter of the existence of genuine qualities which previously they did not see in themselves.
Another portrait I recently completed was of a friend who in certain ways is underconfident of herself. After the first two sittings she said, "I wish I looked like that lady." After the fourth sitting she could no longer deny that the painting is a good likeness. I'm sure there is healing in that.
All images are copyright © Martin Dace 2002, 2005: you must contact me for permission if you wish to publish or reproduce my pictures. Permission will usually be granted for web use provided my authorship and copyright is acknowledged and a link back to my site is provided. A link from my website to yours is also a possibility.