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STEPHEN Shankland is still reeling from winning
the prestigious BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait
Gallery in London last week. "The whole thing is awesome.
I’m still on a high," says the Aberdeenshire-based
artist having just touched down after a giddy whirl of back-to-back
interviews.
The 32-year-old graphic designer’s life has been turned
upside down in seven days. Along with the £25,000 prize,
Shankland has also acquired instant kudos, and now this quietly
confident Scot, who paints as a hobby, could follow in the
footsteps of fellow Scottish and 1987 BP Portrait winner,
Alison Watt. "I don’t want to count my chickens," says
Shankland, "but the BP prize gives me a big platform
to step up on and really start things off professionally." Judging from the technical skill and sheer emotion in Shankland’s
winning portrait, The Miracle, which depicts his artist wife
Kelly holding young son Connor on her knee, the shift to
full-time art seems inevitable.The Miracle was intended as
a tribute both to Shankland’s wife’s fortitude
and his now 17-month-old son’s survival as a newborn
baby. "Kelly had a very problematic pregnancy and when Connor
was born in January 2003 he had a diaphragmatic hernia, which
means his heart was being crushed and his lungs might not
have developed. Only 10% of babies make it through their
first night. However, Connor is a wee fighter, made it through
the operation and is now really well." Shankland has entered the competition many times before,
but it was The Miracle that impressed judges and public alike,
and Shankland believes his painting touched a poignant common
nerve. "I think it won because I finally realised that
portrait painting is all about the soul of the person in
front of you and because The Miracle was so personal I knew
exactly the emotion I wanted to paint into it. "Someone said they thought Kelly was like a mother
tiger: both protective and defensive of her young. That was
spot on." In conversation Shankland emerges as a pragmatist with a
strong work ethic. It is this trait that led the Irvine-born
artist to take not a Fine Art degree but both a BA and MA
in graphic design at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen. "The
first year they really taught you how to draw and paint,
like an apprenticeship, so I gained enough knowledge to continue
painting on my own at nights.
"I knew I wasn’t going to be one of those people
who get caught up in the bubble of art school and can’t
get a job afterwards, so graphic design seemed a decent
day job."
Now, while he fends off any press invasion to his home in
the fishing village of Whinnyfold and considers life as a
full-time artist, mundane domestic matters are pressing. "To
take my mind of pre-award nerves I took my kitchen apart.
Now I’ve to sort the waste pipes for our washing machine
before I can even think about who I am going to paint as
part of the National Portrait Gallery’s commission."
An exhibition of the best entries to the prize is at the
National Portrait Gallery, London, until September 19, then
Aberdeen Art Gallery. |
