Award-winning artist Peter Stichbury paints portraits that emphasize the oddities of his subjects. Flavors recently emailed the artist to learn more about his process and perspectives.
Flavors: How did the portrait of [Flavors investor] Zach Klein come about?
Peter Stichbury: Serendipity. I found Zach’s website by chance and emailed asking if I could include him in my portrait project. He generously said yes. He’s handsome in a non-conventional way, which suited the theme, and for me, he personifies many of the ideas surrounding social networking and internet identity that I’d been researching. Noah Kalina is the author of Zach’s original website photo on which I based the painting, so the work is a collaboration of sorts.
F: What do you think of the interesting connection he ended up having to the buyer [detailed here]?
P: Yeah, bizarre coincidences, it’s hard not to think it was meant to happen for a reason. Nice that a painting might be responsible for bringing people together in some way.
F: What did art mean to you as a child?
P A way of learning and escaping (mostly a way of escaping my other classes).
F: What does it mean to you now?
P: Resisting chronocentrism, chasing ideas…
F: What do you see in the faces you paint?
P: I can’t really see them with any clarity or objectivity until a certain amount of time has passed… but I can get sentimental about them. It’s a cliche, but they’re like my friends or children going off into the world independently.
F: Do you agree with the Wikipedia description of your work as “startlingly attractive and awkwardly ugly”?
P: I’d agree that my work can be awkward. The subject’s idiosyncrasies seem to become a focal point when I’m painting, regardless of where the person might fall on a beauty scale. Anyway, I have to accept that their original context within a show and my creative intentions will have little effect on how they’re perceived in the outside world.
F: Why did you choose Flavors to display your work and social media profiles?
P: Well, aggregating online activities in one place is a clever idea and Flavors is a versatile and attractive platform.
F: What will we see from you next?
P: I’m still using Facebook and other social networking sites for new material. I’m painting this great Prada model at the moment, he reminds me of Donald Draper. The next show is at Art Brussels art fair with Tracy Williams in April.
