C O R O N A P O R T R A I T S: John Lipsham
"... to create a POWERFUL image..."
J ohn Lipsham is a British artist who was born in Portsmouth.
Lipsham paints people and scenes from his memory. As a teenager, he worked at a shipyard in England. Although he encountered members of the upper class there every day, he painted his coworkers, ships, and seemingly mundane, everyday events.
The painter uses both oil and acrylic paints, often mixing the two. Lipsham focuses particularly on using light and shadow to reveal certain characteristics; he especially plays with the hair of the people he portrays.
I believe the artist paints the figures so vaguely because he no longer remembers exactly what the people he paints looked like. He met them a long time ago, and now he has only a vague idea of what they looked like.
Lipsham mainly paints women from the upper class. At the shipyard, these women enjoyed incredible prestige—they were treated like celebrities.
Titles such as “The Blonde…” or “The Redhead…” already suggest that John Lipsham paints from memory. He then gives his paintings exactly the name he himself remembers for the person or event—usually the most striking features of that person.
To prevent the viewer from becoming distracted, Lipsham's paintings are set within traditional, simple frames.
Perhaps John Lipsham’s memory distorted the reality of that time. Perhaps “Blonde in the Albany” didn’t really look bored, perhaps “Lady in the patterned dress” wasn’t wearing red lipstick.
Perhaps one of the ladies Lipsham painted recognizes herself in his portrait and remembers a young man with an extraordinary memory, capable of holding dozens of people in his mind, down to the smallest detail.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I am no longer able to visit exhibitions.
That is why I am launching the “Corona Portraits” series to showcase several artists.
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