July 2013

Chris lived down the road, a friend who apart from his high powered corporate job also ran a shop with beautiful vintage and antiques with his partner Anthony.  Early in 2012 he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He suddenly fell ill and had to have emergency surgery as the cancer had spread to his brain. He responded incredibly well to the initial treatment. After he came back home for a short while I asked him to sit for me and let me take his portrait and he agreed. He was his jovial self and very optimistic about his chances. The portrait above was the one I picked as it expressed his state quite well. The portrait below was the one I worked on first and sent to him. He wrote back and below the image you can find his writing. The image above received an honourable mention in the PX3 awards this year 2013.

‘It’s interesting as the portrait looks less gloomy / scary than I expected and I am not sure, if you didn’t know about the scar, that you would notice it…or not at first anyway…

What catches my eye is all the different textures and nuances of “colour”, the mottling on the wall which echoes the mottling around the scar, the bars from the back of the bench, the black lines on the wall which kind of link up with the lines of the arms, and then the light catching all the folds in the T shirt are all really interesting…

I need to spend some more time looking at it more carefully as I am sure there is lot more to see in there…’

Chris Groocock

He sadly lost the battle and passed away in September 2012.