Many years ago, a friend of mine bought a large scale “double portrait” (see more information below). I am happy to say she has displayed it on her wall ever since. Recently, about 10 years later, I was contacted by a friend of hers. She wondered if I could make her something similar. Of course I took on the challenge, this time aiming for a “triple portrait”.
The idea with multi-layer portraits is to avoid immediate likeness to any of the persons used as basis for the drawing. The end result is a portrait with a very familiar face, although the onlooker is not quite able to pinpoint who the person is or resembles.
For this assignment, I followed the same approach as for the double portrait, but using 3 layers of portraits instead of two. The bottom layer is a drawing of the woman who gave me the assigment, and the “frame” is therefore based on her face. The second and third layer consists of two very famous British actresses. Many people should therefore find something familiar in this face, but the individuals in the upper two layers remain my little secret.
Size: 92 x 92 cm (approx. 36 x 36 inches). Materials: Charcoal on acid free drawing paper.
The Double Portrait
The “double portrait” consists of 2 layers. The first layer is a portrait of myself. On top of this I added a second portrait. The face I chose for the second portrait bears little to no resemblence to my own face. The end result was therefore a portrait that looks familiar to my friend, although she was not able to tell that my face was part of the portrait.
An unintended extra dimension was added by displaying the person with a headscarf instead of with hair. To my eyes the portrait has always looked like a woman, but I am told that this depends on the eyes of the onlooker. Some people will see a female face in the portrait, others will only see a male face. Size: 110 x 96 cm. Materials: Charcoal on acid free drawing paper.
Would you like to purchase a double or triple portrait?
Feel free to get in touch with me if you would like to order something similar.