When packing our stuff to move from New Zealand to Australia, I found some of my early paintings. As an artist I was a late starter (at the age of 26 or 27), so my first paintings are about 25 years old now.
A couple of years ago I painted a few portraits in a slightly off-realistic style and I certainly will go on with that project as soon as my time-seeds are germinated. But seeing my 25 years old paintings again, I realized my preference for ‘weird faces’ was already visible in my early days.
In 1993 I collected pictures from newspapers of people who were in some way ‘in action’. After I had a bunch of good mugs, I played around with the copying-machine to resized the pictures to my liking. Then I stuck them together in a way as if they are looking towards you.
A bit more experienced now, I would say the perspective, details and lighting is ‘somewhat challenging’, but this are still the kind of faces I would have chosen these days too.
I regret I only tore out the pictures and was not interested in the text in the newspapers. The only caption I remember was the guy in the green shirt. He was a golf player and was watching the trajectory of his ball towards the hole. On the painting you still can imagine he was carrying a golf stick in his left hand.