JACKIE AND DAVE ON TWO WEXFORD ARTISTS WILL BE APPEARING ON SKY ARTS NEXT MONTH AS PART OF A PORTRAIT PAINTING CONTEST. MARIA PEPPER REPORTS
TWO TALENTED County Wexford artists, Jackie Edwards and Dave Duffy, are featured in the Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year competition, presented by Frank Skinner and Joan Bakewell which is broadcasting on Tuesday nights at 8 p.m.
Jackie, who lives in Rosslare Harbour, and Dave, from Enniscorthy, were both selected from thousands of entrants for the filmed heats of the high-profile competition after submitting photographs of self-portraits as well as with other examples of their artwork and impressing the programme makers during personal interviews.
The overall winner of the competition will receive a £10,000 commission from a major British institution and £500 of art materials.
Jackie and Dave travelled on different dates to London for the heat stages of the 2018 competition which were filmed last spring. They had four hours over a six-hour period to paint a well-known person in a live sitting at the Wallace Collection building in Hertford House.
Jackie, an experienced artist who grew up in London, and Dave, a former graphic designer and self-taught artist who specialises in portraits using coloured pencil, both said the pressure of performing in front of cameras was intense.
‘I really didn’t think I’d get anywhere. It was a complete surprise. I hadn’t entered it before because of the time pressure. It’s very difficult for an artist to do that, especially in oils but you just have to go in with an attitude of enjoying it and painting a good picture,’ said Jackie, who regularly appears as an extra in the Vikings programme on television. She is currently working on a solo exhibition at the Pigyard Gallery in Wexford for the Opera Festival.
‘You were surrounded by people, there were cameras at all angles. I had no face make-up on. I was nervous and there was a little shake at the beginning but after a while I managed to focus on the work. It helped that I’m used to cameras from Vikings,’ she said.
‘Painting is a solitary exercise, that’s why I didn’t go for the competition but as an artist you must throw yourself out of your comfort zone. Also, it’s great exposure for your career.’
‘The experience was scary but exhilarating,’ said Jackie, who was sworn to secrecy on the outcome of the competition and her progress in it. ‘It was filmed last year but I had to keep schtum. We couldn’t tell anyone until now that we are in it. I would love to tell you what happens but I can’t’, she laughed.
Jackie, who usually paints alone in her studio, practised for the event by timing herself and inviting friends down to watch while she worked and she would advise other artists thinking of entering the competition in future to do the same. The self-portrait which won her entry to the competition was previously shown at the Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Exhibition at Piano Nobel in Kings Cross, London, in 2015 and is now at Gormley Fine Art Gallery in Belfast.
Jackie said that as a native Londoner, it was an honour be recognised by such a prestigious gallery and also by the Sky Arts programme in the city where she grew up.
Dave Duffy was contacted by representatives of the show and invited to enter. He didn’t have a self-portrait and was given a short period of time in which to paint one. ‘It was a bit of a rush job,’ he said modestly, although the result was clearly good enough to get him shortlisted for the filmed heats, from a large number of entries, following a brief interview over the phone.
Dave, who has been working as a full-time artist for just over a year, is due to appear in episode six of the programme on February 20.
‘I was up against it time-wise because painting a portrait with coloured pencils is a slow process’ he said. ‘It was pressure from start to finish. I’m hoping it will be good publicity, even though the work is not something I would say I’m proud of. My work usually takes 30 to 50 hours to complete. It’s pressure with the TV cameras on you, it’s never going to be a masterpiece in those circumstances.’
Dave is busy working on a national ICA commission of a portrait of Anita Lett, the founder of the organisation, which will be unveiled at ICA headquarters in An Grianán in Co. Louth in mid-February.
He will be teaching portrait classes in Gorey during the Easter holidays with more information available on the workshops at the Different Strokes Art Shop in St Michael’s Court.
Jackie will appear on the show on Sky Arts on Tuesday, February 6, at 8 p.m. and Dave appears on Tuesday, February 20, at 8 p.m.