NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
B.P.PORTRAIT AWARD
Here's the only other example of 'narrative painting' I found in the B P Portrait Award exhibition.
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| copyright the artist |
Nathalie Beauvillain Scott is an award-winning portrait artist and the subject's mother. The label tells us that her teenage son, Olivier, had recently been involved in a car accident, and was also the subject of a violent attack.
The background gives us more clues as to why he is looking at us with such sad, knowing - and bruised - eyes. Behind him is his image as a child, too young to imagine perils to come. (Nathalie's portrait of the young Olivier was selected for the BP Portrait Award in 2004). There's paperwork too, headed
Hopitaux de Paris, Assistance Publique dated Christmas Day 2010, which is an added poignancy. An image of the car involved and a clock recording the time of the crash completes this detailed, specific exploration of a young person's experience of something we all wish had never happened. The young Olivier from the innocent past , the clock with its split second record of a critical present moment, each reminds us of a future unknown to anyone.
npg.org.uk
npg.org.uk/publications if you want the catalogue
murals-portraits.co.uk to see more of Beauvillain Scott's work
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