This January sees the return of Nettie Wakefield to the gallery for her very first solo exhibition. A strinkingly talented young artist with an acute eye for detail. Wakefield’s reverse portraits evoke a sense of intrigue and the unbeknownst, setting an imaginary obstacle between the viewed and viewer. By subverting the traditional method of portraiture, the artist has made the familiar unfamiliar, introducing unique and abstract sensibilities into an otherwise ordinary practice. In viewing the subject in reverse, we see them at their most vulnerable; the nape of the neck conveying a suggestion of untold intimacy. Wakefield’s approach, however, is best understood through an inimitable discourse of her own:

Everything we see hides another thing - Magritte

I was sitting in class one day feeling bewildered and disengaged. The girl sitting in front of me had strawberry blonde hair tied up in a plait. I wanted to touch it. I was intrigued by my reaction; the back of her head fascinated me. Who was she? What did her hair reveal to me? I began drawing, looking at each section of her plait and wisps of hair in minute detail. As my focus intensified so did my detachment.

Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached - Simone Weil (1909-43)

‘By dissociating a potent element of a figure my detachment had become tangible; her concealed face revealed by my projections. Later when she turned to leave I saw her and thought to myself: That’s what you look like. I didn’t expect that at all. This was the beginning of Reverse Portraits.

I realised that not only is my own detachment important, but so is the detachment, the disembodiment, of the image itself. No context. No clues. This intensifies our exploration of the image ... it requires us to stay with an aspect of ourselves that we usually take for granted, or experience as being ‘in the way’.

These portraits conceal the face and yet reveal how potent a statement the back of a head can be: the beauty, the intrigue, the mystery. And indeed, it puts us in a strangely intimate place ... for we can see what the subject herself cannot see – with no need to avert our gaze. I have chosen to use pencil for these portraits because I feel it to be an honest medium. There is no hiding with pencil. It is where so many artists have started ... the source of the stream ... and I feel it is able to capture both the apparent simplicity and the provocative depth of the subject.’

There is, no doubt, something quintessentially English about Wakefield’s creative eccentricities and the execution of her draughtsmanship: these works are both quaint and ever so slightly eerie, and with the slyest ode to voyeurism. By setting parallels between her sitter and the viewer themselves – facing each in the same direction; one watching the other watching – Wakefield has also, perhaps, alluded to society’s fascination with Orwellian surveillance – perhaps.

Rook & Raven Gallery
7 Rathbone Place
London W1T IHN United Kingdom
Ph. +44 (0)20 73230805
info@rookandraven.co.uk
www.rookandraven.co.uk

Opening hours
Tuesday - Friday from 11.00am to 6.30pm
Saturdays from 11.00am to 5.00pm