Time And Relative Dimensions In Paint

"The Residence rises to sacred ground as it re-launches at The Verger's Cottage in Hackney Wick, Olympic BangBang E9. Departing from its previous shop location, the gallery reassigns Director Ingrid Z's living space as exhibition platform. The inaugural show stems forth from ideas of private prop(erty) with links to reasonable facsimiles, identity theft, intellectual property,& paparazzi…, featuring new work from our favourite artists and latest fancies"...

This is my 'Self Portrait Study as Doctor Who', painted for the re-launch of Residence Gallery. I was rather pleased with the scarf, and the colours are reasonably close to the original (did you know that there are entire website's devoted to Tom Baker's scarf...!?). The show opens this Friday with performances, a DJ and garden party. You can email off the galley's website to be on the guestlist.

I was torn between painting myself as a child dressed as the fourth Doctor Who, or as an aduIt, and decided in the end that the picture would be stronger set in the present time. The picture holds a lot for me, and having only just finished it last night, and having had to deliver it today, I haven't spent any time with it. On the surface it's a picture about being an obsessive fan, but I'm not actually a fan anymore especially, so perhaps it's about remembering a fanaticism, having left it behind. Although the face is manic there's a sadness too. I think it's also a picture about seeking solace in a character, and attaching yourself to a hero to absorb bits of them in an attempt to escape the trials of life.

Painting the picture made me remember the descent down the dark stairs of the Doctor Who Exhibition in Blackpool, to the loud churning of the seventies theme tune, feeling mildly terrified but not wanting to show it. I remember my Dad driving Paul and I all the way there as a birthday treat or something but my little brother being so hysterical at the thought of entering that dark Tardis off the Golden Mile that we couldn't go in. I was far too young to be allowed in on my own, and I don't know where Mum was that day but there was noone to leave him with so we had to come home again. It was probably days and weeks before I forgave him. Blub!

In any event, I think that this may be the start of something and I'll be doing more. The 'Doctor Who Paintings' anyone?! We'll serve 'sonic screwdrivers' at the opening!

'Private Prop'
4th August - 2nd September
www.residence-gallery.com
www.myspace.com/residencegallery