Jonathan Yeo is an eminent self-taught figurative painter. He typically paints celebrities and other prominent figures. A recurring style in his work that I’m particularly interested in can be seen in his ‘unfinished’ pieces where a part of the portrait he is painting is in photorealistic detail which is fragmented and appears incomplete.
In an interview with Sarah Howgate, curator of contemporary self-portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, Yeo says he remembers seeing a portrait of William Wilberforce by Sir Thomas Lawrence in the National Portrait Gallery collection when he was younger and appreciating it for the unfinished aesthetic. He describes how his best unfinished works are the ones that he finds to work although he is midway through the completion of the piece. He doesn’t intend to leave work unfinished, but discovers a point during painting where the painting is effective at that stage of the process.
Yeo’s unfinished works are significant to the development of my pieces as I can observe how this aesthetic is effective in his work. The washy and abstract backgrounds give focus to the more detailed aspects of the paintings, and the hints of the original pencil sketch beneath the paint gives the viewer an insight to the creative process. The directed focus at the detail gives credit to the skill and technique of the artist and provides no distraction from the face of the model, the source of the personality that Yeo aims to encapsulate.
I think this method will be effective in my work as it will leave all the focus to the part of the piece I want the viewer to concentrate on. By using this as a way of direction, it could heighten the emotion in the piece and make it more powerful, which is something I would like to do as for this project I want to create some emotionally charged work.
Sorcha Harm 