Artist's blog by contemporary portrait painter Peter D'Alessandri

20/08/202220/02/2024

Working methods – composing a painting and looking for a model

the gleaners, work in progress. A painting about social exclusion and inequality — Work in progress – The Gleaners

The Gleaners, a work in progress

I’m having some problems with my painting The Gleaners, and am looking for a suitable life model to help me finish it – someone with a slightly haunted look would be ideal.
The Gleaners is a composition loosely based on Millet’s painting of the same name, and also borrows a lot from Mr and Mrs Andrews by Gainsborough. It is a painting about social exclusion and inequality. It is a painting for our times.

I’m happy with how I’m assembling the cast in the background…..

… but I am having a few problems with the foreground figures –
the “Gleaners”.

I have adapted my working methods for my latest paintings. In the past I would have a model pose for every single figure in a composition. It was a frustratingly slow and very expensive process – every time I wanted to adjust one of the figures, I would have to find someone to pose for me again.
Because my recent paintings have included a growing cast of public figures, including politicians and royalty, I have obviously been unable to arrange personal sittings with them, and have instead had to search for reference material in the public domain. That has gone surprisingly well. Public figures are clearly fond of having their photos taken, so there is a wealth of material to draw from.
No, the problem has been with my foreground figures.

I had the idea of using a creepy old film still from the film “The Shout” as the reference for one of the gleaners. I wanted my gleaners to be emaciated figures desperately scavenging for scraps in an arid landscape. Try as I may, I can’t get it to work. I can’t “glean” enough information from the old B&W shot, and I’m thinking that the emaciated look is unnecessary and a bit clumsy. So I decided to rework the poses, and I am now looking for someone to pose for the front three figures in my painting.
This problem got me thinking about my working methods, and how they have changed over the years, as my studios shrunk along with my savings.
I shudder to think of how many sittings I arranged when I started the Feast of Venus.

preparatory life drawrings for the painting the feast of venus — preparatory drawings for Feast of Venus

That particular painting was an epic fail on my part. It was painted in response to an invite to participate in an exhibition. Sadly I missed the deadline by about six months, and haven’t had any good opportunities to show the painting since. Sadly this experience has discouraged me from developing some of my more ambitious projects.
I learned a lot about the technical challenges in creating a larger composition with multiple figures, but the main lesson was that I have to complete paintings within a reasonable timescale, especially when I have a deadline to meet.

11/07/202214/08/2023

Ramsgate Artists Portrait

This is a photo of my latest work in progress. When I moved to Ramsgate I had the idea of painting a series of portraits of Ramsgate artists. I thought it would be a good way of introducing myself to the local artistic community, I could promote my portrait work, and I might find some interesting subjects. So what happened?
I had a run of four commissions which seem to have taken as many months to finish. Good for the bank balance, but not so good for this particular project. And then I got covid, which seemed to linger forever. I lost my studio, and then I sold my boat and moved away from Ramsgate. Oh well.

The sitting took place in November last year. Fingers crossed that I can finish it soon 🙂 The sitter was Ramsgate composer and sound artist Emily Peasgood. She is an amazing artist and I was so pleased that she found the time to sit for me. You can check out her work here: emilypeasgood.com

28/10/202118/09/2023

The Art of Grieving, and how art saved me

I recently came across a call for artists for The Art of Grieving exhibition in 2022. This immediately caught my attention and I sent them a photo of the above painting. When they asked for “a description of the circumstances in which it was created or the inspiration behind its creation” I sat down and wrote the following for them:

I lost my partner Veronica to a long term illness on Christmas Eve 2009. What I remember most from the period leading up to Veronica’s death, apart from the constant state of physical and mental exhaustion, was the increasing sense of loneliness, as friends called on us less frequently and we slowly withdrew from the world.
After her passing, there was just this dark void – a sense of emptiness. For a few months I felt compelled to paint her. I was trying to preserve my memory of her before it faded; I have never worked so hard. I completed three paintings, and then felt myself falling into the void again. I started this painting, but didn’t manage to finish it before I gave up painting.
It was a few years before I returned to painting, but it wasn’t until 2019 that I felt able to return to this particular painting. It only needed a few touches to finish it. It had been finished all along, it was just that I had not been able to look at it for all that time.

I was surprised at just how upset I became in trying to recall that period over ten years ago. It got me thinking about that dark time in my life; how I got through it and the life choices I made in the process.

oil painting portrait of Veronica, winner of the Frank Todman award — Veronica

The carer.
For a long while I was “the carer”. I can’t remember when this role began. It started innocently, with a friendly request by Veronica to accompany her to her hospital appointment, and then years later I had fully joined the battle. By then everything else was put aside – work, art, socialising, holidays – as Veronica and I focused on trying to get the best treatment for her illness, and monitored her declining health. And in the end, when she was less able, it was left to me alone to make all the decisions. It was scary, and very lonely.
The bereaved.
For the longest time I felt broken. After an initial frenzy of activity, where I finished those paintings that I had planned when Veronica was still alive, I then entered a prolonged period of emptiness. I lived on autopilot. I did not know what I was going to do, but I did know that I could not return to my old life pre-carer. All those things I had worked so hard for didn’t seem to matter anymore.

oil painting by peter d'alessandri. relationships series — Relationships Series No.4

The artist.
I remember the day that art saved me. A friend had offered to pose for a portrait, which had slowly stirred me from my stupor. But then, after I had gone to the trouble of buying a canvas and setting everything up, they casually said they had changed their mind. When I complained to them, they couldn’t understand why I was so upset, and just said “it’s more important to you than it is to me”. And that was the moment I realised, yes, this portrait was very important to me. Just the anticipation of it was exciting. It wasn’t just this portrait though. It was art. It gave me a purpose and made me feel alive again. Within a year I had thrown away my furniture to use my lounge as a studio, and a few years later I sold my house so that I could afford a studio.

www.artofgrieving.org.uk

25/10/202101/11/2023

Tracey Emin exhibits alongside Edvard Munch and Peter D’Alessandri

tracey emin exhibits with Peter D'Alessandri — Kent artist exhibits with Tracey Emin

Two Kent artists exhibit at the Turner Contemporary

So, on the same night as the opening of “Tracey Emin/Edvard Munch, The Loneliness of the Soul” in Oslo, Tracey Emin was also exhibiting a painting at the Turner Contemporary Open, in Margate, alongside my painting “American Dreamer”.

tracey emin's bed next to a painting by edvard munch — Tracey Emin’s bed next to painting by Munch

I must admit to being very pleased with where they placed my painting. I can see why they did it; the splash of red in my work sits nicely next to Ms Emin’s piece. The whole exhibition has been cleverly arranged with similar decisions throughout. It was an aesthetically pleasing experience going from room to room, and I’d strongly recommend a visit.

detail from painting American Dreamer — detail from American Dreamer

An even nicer surprise was when Ms Emin left a nice comment on my Instagram post. It can be a hard slog being an artist. Lonely and largely unrewarding, with prolonged periods of rejection and dejection just briefly interspersed with the briefest glimmers of hope. So it’s nice when someone from the Artistic Aristocracy says something nice to you. Thank you Tracey.

15/10/202120/02/2024

So who are the men in suits, and how Michael Armitage saved this painting.

The artist and his painting The Men in Suits, including Prince Andrew, Epstein, Weinstein — Men in Suits, including Prince Andrew, Epstein, Weinstein

Who are these men in suits, staring lasciviously at a group of young naked women performing a macabre dance for their pleasure? Is that Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein along with Harvey Weinstein?

I will try to explain, but first I have to thank Michael Armitage for helping me finish this painting. Well, not the man himself (I’ve never met him, and no doubt he’s never heard of me), but his masterpiece “#mydressmychoice”.

I’d been struggling with my painting for a few years – constantly repainting and changing the background. I knew what I wanted to say, but didn’t know how to say it. And then, about this time last year, while looking around the Radical Figures exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, I had my eureka moment. I had stumbled upon Michael Armitage’s superb painting #mydressmychoice and suddenly it seemed so obvious what I had to do.

detail of the painting #mydressmychoice by michael armitage

I needed a collection of seedy, smirking, sweaty middle aged men to fill the background – all dressed in suits with patent leather shoes. So who could I choose? That was easy; you can find them everywhere: A disgraced politician; a Prince of the Realm; convicted sex offenders Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein. I even added my own likeness, leering in the top left, standing next to someone wearing a mask, who could well be you.

The problem with this painting was that it had originally been intended as part of a larger composition with a different story. I abandoned that project, after spending an awful lot of time and money on it – it just didn’t work visually when I scaled it up to full size. But I did like this particular section, and the sentiment it evoked. And so I continued working on it. For four whole years. But still it didn’t work. And then I saw Michael Armitage’s painting, and I knew how to fix it.
So, after nearly four years of frustratingly little progress, it turned out to be quite easy to finish the painting in the end. Below is a short video of me adding the figures to the background.