Watch a video showing this self-portrait evolve as it was painted
(link opens in a new window) My name is Rob Meinhard.
I am a London-based artist.
I specialise in portraiture, and this website is a showcase of my work.
What makes a good portrait?
There's a view that portraiture is all about getting a good likeness.
In fact, when it comes to producing a successful portrait the
painter's core priorities — control of colour, tone and
composition — remain the tests of success.
Not that a likeness is unimportant. It's crucial of course. But a portrait can't be a good portrait without first being a good painting. Fall at that first hurdle and no matter how painstakingly accurate the transcription of the features, the portrait will fail.
What's my approach?
My motto - if
I had one - would go like this:
‘Draw on tradition in new ways’It's probably good I've got no motto, given how that one sounds.
Cutting past the slight smell of flannel, though, I find I actually mean something clear and specific.
First, tradition is important: only a fool would turn their back on the accumulated experience of what's gone before. There's a particularly strong portrait tradition in Britain, and I'm always looking to learn new lessons from how previous generations have approached their job. I currently devote three days a week to a diploma course in portraiture where the traditional, technical aspects of painting are placed front and centre. Harnessed to tradition, and equally important, is the need to remain open to what's new. I've always enjoyed using technology, and in constructing my pictures I make heavy use of laptops and digital cameras — two tools that open up a world of new possibilities for the artist.
Since 2004 I've been working to build up a practice as a professional portrait painter. I've taken a scenic route to get to this point. I have degrees in economics and international politics from the Universities of Manchester and Oxford. I've worked in London's policy thinktanks, in the British Parliament, and in the European Commission in Brussels. I've also worked as a web programmer and designer, and as a consultant for a multinational IT business. I now paint full time, taking portrait commissions from across the UK and also internationally. It's the best job I've ever had.
Thanks for visiting. Do take a look around. And don't hesitate to get in touch by clicking the link at the bottom of the page.
Most of a portrait painter's output will tend to be pictures of individual sitters. In my view there's one overriding goal: to produce something that has strength and integrity as an image. On this fundamental hook I hang the incidental aspects that will make a portrait engaging and personal. The mood, expression and bearing of the sitter, together with symbols and meaningful details from the sitter's life, can, with luck and preparation, be brought together in a coherent whole.
The paintings I've included here were produced using a combination of live sittings and computer-altered photographs. The section contains the following individual portraits:
- Portrait of Carmen Ladrón de Guevara
- restorer of the Carthusian monastery at Cazalla, Andalucia
and founder of a contemporary arts centre - oil on canvas, 2005
- Portrait of Professor Sir Brian Smith
- Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wales
- oil on canvas, 2002
- Zoe, studio session
- Full-length nude from a studio life session
- oil on canvas, 2007
- Chris, studio session
- oil on canvas, 2007
- Portrait of my grandmother
- oil on canvas, 2001
![Triple Portrait [With my Parents]](images/medium/PaintTriplePortrait.jpg)
By contrast with individual portraits, where the main interaction is between the sitter and the artist or viewer, group portraits inform the viewer about the relationships between the people in the picture. This added layer of complexity requires thoughtful handling.
This section contains the following group portraits:
- Triple Portrait (With My Parents)
- This picture won the 2006 Heatherley Prize for Portraiture
- In 2007 it was shown by the Royal Society of Portrait Painters as part of their annual exhibition at the Mall Galleries, London
- oil on board, 2006
- The West Family
- oil on board, 2004
In "Triple Portrait (With My Parents)" there's no eye contact. Everyone is immersed in their own immediate world. But the arrangement of the figures is intended to convey comfort with one another - the uncomplicated sharing of common space.
"The West Family" by contrast are directly engaged with one another. I try to reinforce this using eyelines and hands. While I was working on this picture I took to calling it the 'Holy Family', and this is my (wholly secular) attempt to get across something of the sense of harmony you sometimes get from renaissance treatments of that subject.
Self-portraits aren't commissions.
An obvious statement, which points towards what makes them interesting.
When you're the client, with only yourself to please, space opens up to
try out new techniques and unfamiliar approaches.
This section contains the following self-portraits:
- Self-portrait, 2007
- you can also watch a video showing this self-portrait evolve and develop in the course of being painted
- (the video link opens in a new window)
- oil on board, 2007
- Self-portrait, 2005
- painted for my diploma course application
- oil on canvas, 2005
- Self-portrait, 2000
- based on a manipulated photo, a scan of this painting
was then digitised for use as part of an online project - oil on canvas, 2000
- Self-portrait in orange hoody, 1994
- oil on paper, 1994
- Manchester, 1991
- from college days
- oil on paper, 1991
The pictures in this section aren't finished paintings. Rather, they're more cursory attempts to capture light or colour, composition or likeness. Some of them were then used as source material for more finished work.
Many of them come from the course I take at Heatherleys. Models sit for our Heatherleys group in six-day or nine-day setups. We're encouraged to do what we can, always from life, with the time available.
This section contains the following studies and sketches:
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This website adjusts the size of the images it shows you in the gallery, according to the size of your computer screen. Here's a page of direct links to large-size images of all the paintings.
...Which is what I set out to do. My solution keeps things as simple as possible. Imagine the gallery space, seen from above, flattened into a map drawn on squared paper. The walls and the paintings all have a fixed position. The viewer, who can move around inside the space, is represented by three numbers. The first two are a pair of coordinates giving the position of the viewer on the flattened map; the third is an angle showing what direction the viewer is facing. The 3D illusion in the image above is generated by dividing the scene from left to right into vertical strips. For each of those strips, I find the distance to the nearest wall using some straightforward trigonometry. On each strip the height of the wall (and the height of any painting that's hung on it) corresponds to the distance between the wall and the viewer, following the rules of perspective.
Essentially, a lot of calculation is going on in the background to answer a simple question: how far away is the wall? By updating the answer several times a second, the walls can be drawn and redrawn as the viewer moves around the gallery.
In April of 2007 I made a self-portrait. I took photographs throughout the process, and then put together this video which shows the evolution of the picture over time.
My review of the portraiture exhibition shown at the Royal Academy in London during the spring of 2007.
Carmen is the owner of the Cartuja de Cazalla, an ancient carthusian monastery in southern Spain. Over the past thirty years she has overseen its transformation from an abandoned ruin into a thriving cultural centre and tourist business.
The portrait was commissioned by a group of Carmen's friends and supporters. It's an international group, and inevitably some of them couldn't be present at the Cartuja for the grand unveiling in the monastery's central chapel. Wanting both to thank them and to include them in the event, I put together a web page presenting the portrait and telling the story of Carmen and the Cartuja.
