Art class, on the face of it

BY CHARLES ANDERSON

Artist Monique Richards grew up in Nelson, but she's almost an Australian now. Charles Anderson catches up with her.

The face of 15-year-old Perry Duncan slowly materialises. He sits almost motionless as his peers crowd around him, watching the whisking movement of a paintbrush trace the vague outline of his features.

"Look," says Mike Friend, the head of art at Nayland College, "it is like it appears out of the mist."

Like a photo being developed or a bust sculpted in time lapse, Perry's face begins to take shape. The skin is slightly blushed. The complexion is smooth. A quiff of brown hair swings its way across the forehead.

The artist's eyes dash back and forth from Perry to her palette, to the canvas.

"I don't know how you do it. I hate being watched while I paint," Friend says.

"I prefer it," replies the artist.

"I usually paint alone"

The audience is obedient, only asking questions of the painter and occasionally poking fun at the sitter.

"Sit still, Perry," one student says.

"Is he alive?" asks another.

At the start of the lesson, Perry went to his teacher and laid his cards on the table: "There is some good news and some bad news," he said. "The good news is that I'm here. The bad news is I forgot my work."

So Perry, unreluctantly, became Monique Richards' model in an experiment last week – she worked while surrounded by secondary school students. She was Nayland College's artist in residence.

It was a chance for the emerging artist to make a connection with younger aspiring painters.

"It's using the opportunity to show the kids that art isn't just something that happens in school," Friend says. "It is a career option."

Richards, 26, had never taken part in such an opportunity before.

The former Waimea College student, now an Australian-based artist, thought it might be a good chance to have some company while she worked and pushed towards finishing her works for her latest exhibition in Melbourne.

"It's good to have people around you," she says. "I tend to work in isolation, so I really appreciate this. Students come in and say g'day and show me their work and ask me who I'm painting. It's really nice."

Richards has nearly finished all of her 12 pieces. She has been working solidly for six weeks to get them done but is now on the final stretch.

She has always been a painter. As a child, the walls in her home were busy – filled with photos, graffiti, small tokens of inspiration. Her first solo exhibition was at the age of 15. It sold out. After dabbling in other professions, she has always come back to painting. And she always comes back to portraits.

"It's people I am interested in," Richards says, as she dips her paintbrush into a mix of grayish green. "Some people just jump out at you with something about them which makes them interesting. I suppose that is everybody, really."

Richards loosely wipes her sitter's acrylic jowl.

The circumstance that led to Perry sitting for her is unusual. In normal circumstances, she would go up to someone in the street and just ask.

"Usually, they are cool with it. Maybe they are flattered or just figure I'm harmless. I try to reassure them that I'm not some weirdo."

The girl with the glasses staring out from the canvas behind her must not have thought so. Richards approached her in the Nelson market. She doesn't know her name or how to contact her but something about her piqued her interest.

"You just hope they like it."

"They" are the characters she paints. "They" vary from strangers to musical icons. Last year, Richards was a finalist in the West Australia Black Swan Prize for Portraiture after painting Australian rock/folk legend Paul Kelly. The year before, she painted blues and funk musician John Butler.

"He said he was really with it. Not happy enough to buy it, but he said he didn't want a big portrait of himself in his house, which was fair enough."

Across all her subjects, it is the individual who appeals. Richards says there is something about painting a face that helps you appreciate their individuality.

"The painting feels like it is holding you if it has eyes."

Perry blinks, it seems, for the first time since he sat down.

"Listen up, please," Friend says, raising his voice over the din of art-room banter. "Look on the floor. Anything there, pick it up, and I want the brushes in the sink."

Richards scrapes some more grey over one of Perry's eyes.

"Oops, I might have gone overboard there. I might have destroyed his eye. It's nothing personal, Perry."

Only her father, Warren, an art teacher himself, and her grandmother have done her portrait. She has sat for no-one else. Except herself. If she were to let someone else paint her, they might concentrate on blue eyes or accentuate elfin ears peeking through from thick wavy auburn hair. Or on skin that seems to have a similar quality to the paint she now applies to the canvas in front of her. You cannot see the whole face until the end.

"I thought about doing one for this show but I ran out of time."

The bell rings. Bags are swung over shoulders and parting advice handed out.

"Have a good weekend," Friend says.

"I suppose I could put Perry's in the exhibition," Richards says.

Perry grins, revealing glinting braces.

"It would definitely sell."

Her subject looks fidgety. A group of his peers signal at him from the other side of the window. It's lunchtime.

Perry leans around the edge of the easel to see himself rendered as art.

"Awesome," he says. The subject is well pleased.

And then, the artist lets the sitter go.

How can you tell if you have got the portrait right?

"I'm not sure. It's hard to explain, but you just know when you look at it. I'm not sure if this one is dead right."

Either way, the painting is for Perry. He can pick it up on Monday.

Monique Richards' next exhibition is in Melbourne and opens at the Brunswick Street Gallery on April 9.

For more information about the artist, visit moniqueartist.com.

- © Fairfax NZ News