More art – Blaenau Gwent REACH

‘Girl with the Pearl Earring’, Philip Hughes

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‘Portrait of Ann’, Helen Thomas

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Helen offers a new take on L. S Lowry’s painting ‘Portrait of Ann’, created in the late 1950s. Helen’s version captures the stylised, non-traditional air of the original. Ann stares directly out of the painting at us with her head and shoulders square on. The effect is arresting.  Yet despite the immediacy of her framing and posture, in Helen’s picture Ann seems somehow removed from us. That’s in part down to the indistinct nature of the background, but also the way in which the rubbing technique disrupts our view of her. It’s as though she is looking at us through a dirty window, or perhaps from the other side of a cracked mirror.

‘Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting’, Deborah Burgess

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Deborah gives us a reworking of ‘Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting’ by seventeenth-century Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi. On one level the picture could be read as an uncontroversial depiction of an aristocratic young lady engaged in an artistic hobby. The fact that it is a self-portrait, however, belies that view. Gentileschi was a professional artist in an era when women were generally excluded from the public pursuit of the arts. Deborah’s take on the original does a good job of capturing the intimacy of the original. The bare arms and neck, the sense of the subject being captured in the act of creation, give a sense of viewing, perhaps even intruding upon, a private scene.

This page is part of the Blaenau Gwent REACH online exhibition.

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