‘Remarkable’ art exhibition goes online
POIGNANT drawings of residents in North East care homes are now on show in an online exhibition.
Andrew Tift, one of the UK’s top portrait artists, whose subjects are usually well-known political figures, has created remarkably realistic pencil drawings of residents from three Washington care homes.
His work, completed before the coronavirus outbreak, had been due to go on display at Arts Centre Washington.
But, with the venue remaining closed because of the pandemic, the artist says he has resorted to “plan B” to show what he calls the strongest body of work of his career.
While the detailed portraits of the elderly residents have taken on extra significance in light of the way the care sector has been so hard hit by Covid19, Andrew visited the pensioners at a time when care homes and their residents rarely had recognition.
The results were shown at Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens last year during its Leonardo da Vinci exhibition, but now the full range of drawings is featuring online and the artist has plans to develop them into paintings.
Tift – who has drawn the likes of politicians Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone and Neil and Glenys Kinnock, and whose work has featured at the National Portrait Gallery since 2014 – was commissioned to create the drawings as part of a project called One Day You’ll Be Older Too, funded by the Washington Area Committee, which offers residents a greater say in council affairs.
His past work has included portraits of Nissan workers and shipbuilders for a project involving the National Portrait Gallery in 1994.
This time he visited Washington Manor Care Home, Washington Lodge Care Home and St George’s Residential Care Home, where he said it was “a privilege” to meet the residents.
“I loved doing the project and I think it is one of my strongest bodies of work in nearly 30 years of practice,” he said. “I don’t see it purely as an indigenous body of work which can only be consumed in the North East.
“I think people anywhere would respond to the fragility of their lives and it has become even more relevant and prescient recently.”
The artist said he had wanted to capture microscopic details of the sitters to show their identity and life experience.
“I wanted to interpret the residents very much as individuals and depict them in the most intimate and sensitive way that I could,” he said.
“It’s interesting doing an online exhibition but it is always going to be a ‘Plan B’ option.”
Coun John Kelly of Sunderland City Council said: “It was fantastic to see one of the country’s most respected portrait artists work with people in Washington and I’d urge people to see them online; they really are quite remarkable.”
The portraits have been added to the Sunderland museum’s collection and can be seen online at sunderland culture.org.uk.