The Portrait

The Portrait

I knew something was up when she offered to pay for the coffees. She hasn’t done that in all the years I’ve known her. Perhaps she had fallen out with her gallery, wanted me to introduce her to another one.

She didn’t beat about the bush. ‘What they want is a portrait of the founder.’

‘So why have they asked you? Your stuff is strictly abstract, all dots and squiggles, Jackson Pollock on speed. It could be a map of the moon on a bad day or forest fires in Brazil. Why don’t they ask a sculptor or some nerd who makes holograms?’

She sneered. ‘Because they want something modern, something good the public haven’t seen before. And it has to hang on the wall while the formal portrait is under conservation, so no holograms or lumps of bronze.’

I sighed. I’m only an art critic, what do I know? She had a fierce glint in her eye. I feared the worst.

‘What I’m going to do is this.’ Reaching for a napkin, she began to scribble out a design, adding in plastic spoons and lumps of sugar to illustrate the point. I hate looking at an art work before it is finished, or reassuring artists asking what is missing from. If I knew, I’d do it myself.

‘That might just be crazy enough to work,’ I muttered through gritted teeth, ‘has potential, but it will cost you a fortune.’

Never mind, the client is paying all the up-front costs. Can’t you see? It’s what Rauschenberg said his work was doing: “making painting do the work of sculpture”. When it’s finished I’ll sell it to the Met, the Tate or the Pompidou Centre.’

We parted on the best of terms. My approval seemed to have cheered her up. I didn’t see her for several months, until a peremptory order arrived on my mobile phone. The studio, Friday, mid-day.

Friday it rained all day. I was soaked by the time she let me in. ‘Don’t drip on the floor, throw your coat over there. Did you bring any biscuits?’

Biscuits, coffee and small talk first. It was nearly four by the time we made it through to the business part of the studio, the light fading badly. From her spoon and sugar description months ago in the coffee bar I knew this was part of the plan.

For a change, the studio was empty of canvasses, except for a huge one which took up most of the far wall, probably some ten feet by eight. I found a mobile spotlight hidden in one corner, plugged it in and directed it at the painting. A single object dominated the centre, standing out in bright blue and green impasto against the heavy tones of the background. Looking carefully I could see the barely discernible elements were made up of collaged objects: old canvas cut-offs, fragments of unrecognisable detritus, metal advertising signs, even a toy boat.

However, it was the figure itself which demanded most attention. The body was a heavy rectangle, surmounted by an oval head made from purple plastic. ‘Because it’s the royal colour,’ she said, urging me along.

Beneath the plastic the face was constructed from swirls of thick paint, like a child’s finger painting in nursery school. ‘Wait,’ she ordered, turning on an adjacent light switch.

The face and the front of the painting burst into life. Three dribbles of neon, red, blue and green, hung down, defining the body, casting their coloured shadows on the paintwork beneath. Above, the face turned to a mass of writhing neon snakes, like the ornaments on Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, trying to bite one another’s tails.

I stood, amazed, trying to take it all in: the snakes, the lights, the haphazard collage. Stood back to get a better perspective. ‘Turn the lights off again.’

She did so. We stood there shoulder to shoulder.

‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘what do you think?’

‘Utter bloody rubbish,’ I said.

‘Yes. I know. But I’ve got a better plan. Not quite as crazy, but I think this one will work.’