Unless a Few People at Least Say, 'Why Are You

Profile 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 8 8 9 9 10 10 11 11 12 12 13 13 14 14 15 15 16 16 17 17 18 18 19 19 20 20 21 21 22 22 23 23 24 24 25 25 26 26 27 27 28 28 29 29 30 30 31 31 32 32 Unless a few people at least say, 33 33 34 34 35 ‘Why are you doing that? 35 36 36 37 You’re mad!’ then what’s the point? 37 38 38 39 39 40 Sedate society portraits 40 41 41 42 to sexed-up shock tactics: 42 43 43 44 Jonathan Yeo’s walk on the wild side 44 45 45 46 By Rebecca Rose 46 47 47 48 Photographs by Charlie Bibby 48 49 49 50 50 51 51 52 52 53 53 54 54 55 55 56 56 57 57 58 58 59 59 60 60 61 61 62 62 63 63 64 64 65 65 66 66 67 67 68 68 69 69 70 FT WEEKEND September 13/14 2008 23 Profile 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 8 8 9 9 10 10 11 11 12 12 13 13 14 14 15 15 16 HE FANTASTIC THING ABOUT GORDON 16 17 BROWN’s FACE IS THAT IT IS JUST SO VERy… craggy. That’s what Jonathan 17 18 Yeo tells me during a recent visit to his studio in Cadogan Gardens, off 18 19 London’s Sloane Square. 19 20 Laid out on a table in front of him is his recent portrait of the prime 20 21 ministerT in all his splendid cragginess. Despite appearances, the portrait is 21 22 nowhere near finished. In fact, the bold, expressive brushstrokes, typical of 22 23 Yeo’s painting style, are only the underlayer of what will undoubtedly be 23 24 the first image of the premier of its kind. The 37-year-old artist is known 24 25 predominantly for being one of most successful portrait painters in the UK 25 26 today, and in particular for the illustriousness of his sitters, among them 26 27 Prince Philip, Rupert Murdoch, Dennis Hopper, Tony Blair and, currently, 27 28 David Cameron. Brown, however, would not agree to sit for him. “It was 28 29 probably seen as too elitist for him to be sitting around having his portrait 29 30 painted,” muses Yeo, who resorted to composing the portrait from an amal- 30 31 gam of photographs. 31 32 Brown and his advisers may regret this decision when the finished work 32 33 is unveiled later this month in New York. There, as part of a group show for 33 34 Steve Lazarides, Yeo’s dealer and an enfant terrible of the contemporary 34 35 art scene, “Gay Gordon” (the piece’s working title) may look like a painting 35 36 from a distance but will in fact be made of scraps cut from pornographic 36 37 magazines. Viewers’ eyes are bound to water as they pick out certain sala- 37 38 cious details. 38 39 When I ask Yeo if he ever thought twice about making such a flagrant 39 40 piece of art, he says, “I did meet Sarah Brown the other day, and she was so 40 41 lovely, I thought, ‘Oh, can I do this?’.” But he overcame any wobbles by the 41 42 next day. “Anyway, I hope people will find it funny. I’m in the entertain- 42 43 ment business after all!” 43 44 Pornographic collages of politicians and other dignitaries may seem a 44 Jonathan Yeo’s 45 kamikaze detour from portrait painting, especially with Cameron sitting 45 studio, just off 46 for Yeo in good faith. But for the past year, Yeo has been straddling two Sloane Square in 46 47 very different artistic spheres. On the one hand, he continues to paint oil central London 47 48 portraits of the great and the good for £75,000-£100,000 a pop. But he is 48 49 also dipping a toe in the frenzied waters of the contemporary art world While the juxtaposition is amusing, in a back-of-the-school-bus kind of left 49 Erin 50 with its love of controversy and headlines. His collages shock and titillate way, I find the bombardment of genitalia of all shapes, sizes and tones ini- 50 2004, oil on canvas, of 51 in equal measure; they whizz around the internet at the speed of light and tially stomach-churning. model Erin O’Connor 51 52 are sold in a flash in Lazarides’ Soho gallery. Is this a risky diversion from “You soon get over the content, and start really only looking for very 52 53 a lucrative business of classical portrait commissions? The fact that Yeo’s particular skintones,” says Yeo. “You soon learn which magazines are good Portraits right 53 54 porn-collage portrayals of Hugh Hefner and Lucian Freud fetched for certain areas of the face. Big Butt magazine is a good one,” he says, Dennis (study) 54 2005, oil on canvas, of 55 £30,000-plus this summer suggests not. The risk, then, might be of a dif- pointing vaguely to two plastic crates full of porn, and then turning to test by Yeo 55 actor Dennis Hopper 56 ferent nature: that a portrait painter’s bid for contemporary art-world me with an impish smile. Before his move into 56 57 stardom could fall flat. By my third visit to the studio, he has begun building up the first layer collage, Jonathan 57 58 The Gordon Brown portrait is under embargo until the New York of collage by finding bits of body that match skintone in the painting Yeo built a reputation 58 59 show’s opening night, September 25. But an exclusive look at the work-in- underneath. It takes time and, as Yeo points out, one of these collages can for unconventional 59 60 progress – and at Yeo at work – reveals Brown’s large, square, boulder-like take a lot longer than a painted portrait. oil portraits, often 60 61 head filling out the canvas. At the piece’s painted stage, Brown’s face is He seizes on a scrap of darkish, toned flesh and holds it up to Brown’s with bare canvas 61 62 rendered in sludgy, liverish tones, which make him look jowly and give him forehead. “Yes,” he says, “that ought to do it.” The match is exact. Yeo then backgrounds. His 62 63 that unhealthy tinge of a man under the cruel light of news cameras. This traces around the blocky area of paint and transfers this shape to the mag- image of the model 63 64 is the tense, scrutinised Brown we recognise from the television, being azine paper. He cuts it out carefully with a pair of nail scissors, uses his Erin O’Connor, 64 65 taken to task once again. It is in marked contrast to Yeo’s official portrait of finger to apply a thin layer of glue from a puddle on a Blockbuster mem- right, won a place in 65 66 Tony Blair unveiled earlier this year, in which the former leader has bership card, sticks the scrap to the canvas and smoothes it down. There the 2005 BP portrait 66 67 dropped his clenched smile and relaxed the worry lines of office. are several bits of collage there already, and it is only under the glare of prize awards show 67 68 On the table, a sea of top-shelf magazines surround the prime minister, Yeo’s giant spot lamp that you can see a difference in sheen. The edges of 68 69 some intact, but most ripped apart, with pages and scraps lying around. the paper, however, are now invisible. The result is like a cross between a 69 70 FT WEEKEND FT WEEKEND 24 September 13/14 2008 September 13/14 2008 25 Profile 1 very complex jigsaw puzzle and an equally sophisticated mosaic. The proc- 1 2 ess is mesmerising to watch. 2 3 While he flicks through a pile of pages selected for tone and texture, Yeo 3 4 chats animatedly, telling me how he has consulted a paper conservationist 4 5 to find out how to make these collages last. “This kind of paper,” he says, 5 6 feeling a thin, shiny sheet between two fingers, “is not meant to last.” Yeo 6 7 uses acid-free glue and frames the pieces with UV-filtering glass to give 7 8 Yeo selects pages from them a better chance of survival than, say, a Picasso collage. But those 8 9 a pile of pornographic techniques are as far as he will go: a work of art should not be frozen in 9 magazines for tone 10 and texture, then aspic. “It is, after all, a living thing.” 10 11 cuts and pastes 11 12 them to build his YEO HAD LONG PONDERED USING PORNOGRAPHY IN HIS WORK BUT WAS 12 13 collage portraits. ONLY GALVANISED INTO TRYING IT IN 2007, WITH AN IMAGE OF GEORGE W. 13 14 The resulting BUSH – after an official portrait commission of the US president fell 14 pictures have sold 15 15 for £30,000-plus through despite a long, frustrating vetting process from 2002-2004. 16 The resulting piece, a large, framed collage 16 17 that hangs in Yeo’s studio (shown on the cover of “There 17 18 this magazine), is a close-up of Bush, with the 18 19 top of his head cropped.

Load more