David Caldwell RP

Statement

I paint primarily from life. This direct engagement with the sitter is an important part of my work. A portrait is not only about achieving a likeness but also about capturing the sitter’s individual energetic presence.

I am concerned with translating my ‘experience’ of looking. I want my paintings to suggest the sensation of stereoscopic vision, as the camera lens cannot, and to amalgamate the layers of looking - indeed the layers of time - into one image. Ultimately I would like my work to express the sensation of having been there, of having stood in my shoes.

Each sitter represents a new proposition, calling for a unique solution in response. The artist might consider many factors in a portrait: personality, anatomy, facial expression, body language, aura, style, scale, perhaps even the human condition. This for me is the thrill of portraiture and the reason that I find it to be so endlessly engaging.

Composition, colour, tone and all the other considerations of the painter are also answerable of course. The portrait must function as an interesting painting in its own right. Various arrangements inevitably need to be made, and as the layers of time elapse it is vital that the work maintains its freshness in order that the energy and vitality of the living subject be contained in the finished work.

The paint-strokes map the journey of eye and hand, whilst colour and value are constantly weighed against the whole. Nature is not mimicked but rather translated and retold. An equivalent harmony is sought.

In my opinion, it is the representation at once of both the formal structure of the visible world and the intangible psychological insight  - or ‘inner life’ – of the sitter that represents the greatest challenge in portraiture, as demonstrated in the portraits of Velasquez, Goya or Rembrandt.

I look forward to many more journeys in portraiture to come.

Bio

David Caldwell was born in Helensburgh in the West of Scotland in 1977. He studied at the Glasgow School of Art (1994-98) and the Royal Drawing School (2003-05). He has won several awards and residencies including the Royal Society of Portrait Painters’ own Bulldog Bursary and The Founder’s Purchase Prize at the ING Discerning Eye (adjudged by the late Brian Sewell).

He has twice been short-listed for the BP Portrait Awards, most recently in 2013 when he displayed 77 miniature portraits at the National Portrait Gallery.

In recent years David has been short-listed for various other major awards including the Seven Investments Management ‘Conversations’ Prize, the Ruth Borchard Self-portrait Prize, the Threadneedle Figurative Art Prize, the Lynn Painter-Stainers Award and the W. Gordon Smith Award. David lives and works as an artist and portrait painter in Highgate, London.