PORTRAITS

Auntie by Aleah Chapin

I came across an item about the BP Portrait Award 2012 Exhibition on the BBC Website. Of course they stress the fact that the prizewinning work represents a three-quarter length female nude.Only a detail of head and shoulders was shown and before viewing the whole image -and the works of others on the shortlist.There was a warning that nudity was involved.I don't know who the BBC was trying to please by this unnecessary warning. It seems particularly pointless but who knows what goes through the minds of these folk.

Ms Chapin's painting is in one way representative of what you might almost call the BP aesthetic.There is often a strong dependency on photography in the works of the exhibitors;either literally or in spirit. There is usually a bright clear lighting. It is so common in works in these shows as to be typical.It is deadening ,lifeless and boring.It seems to me that Ms Chapin uses photography as much as the next portraitist. Look at her website and there are paintings where the pose, or groupings when there is more than one figure, would be hard to record without photography. Users of photography will say that they are perfectly entitled to use any source they like in their work-and so they are.But it does seem rather trivial to me.