The Long Look
The Long Look with The National Galleries of Scotland at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Saturday 25th May until Sunday 27th October 2019.
Part of Edinburgh Art Festival
The Long Look explores a unique creative exchange between two artists. The painter Audrey Grant and photographer and printmaker Norman McBeath developed an unconventional ‘artist and sitter’ relationship when Grant asked McBeath to sit for a portrait in charcoal. At the end of each sitting, Grant asked McBeath to photograph the drawing she had made that day. She would then erase her drawing at the start of the next sitting and begin the portrait anew. Intrigued by Grant’s working methods, McBeath began to photograph aspects of this process, such as the sitter’s chair, Grant’s hands, and the charcoal she used. Grant completed the portrait after two years of sittings and, in tandem, worked on a separate portrait of McBeath, as well as two long- durational portraits of the award-winning crime writer Val McDermid. The four finished portraits, along with images of all the versions of the drawings that no longer exist, and McBeath’s own photographs, will be on display in this fascinating and revelatory exhibition
The Making of a Portrait is a podcast series from the National Galleries of Scotland, exploring an extraordinary creative exhange between artists Audrey Grant and Norman McBeath. Presented by SNPG Deputy Director and Chief Curator of Portraiture, Imogen Gibbon. Listen here
THE LONG LOOK: The Making of a Portrait – Audrey Grant, Norman McBeath and Val McDermid Exhibition Book can be purchased from the National Galleries of Scotland. Click here
Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition 2019
Summer Exhibition 2019 at the Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, 10 June – 12 August 2019
Audrey Grant’s painting ‘Woman IX‘ has been selected for the prestigious Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition until 12 August 2019. Currently on display in Gallery IX curated by Hughie O’Donoghue RA.