TOM Halifax comes to Hong Kong with impeccable references. On his last visit the portrait painter was accompanying Prince Charles as official artist for the trip, and he has already painted our own royals, the Patten family. The glitter of these commissions is slightly misleading though.
'This isn't the profile I have normally. All that grandeur isn't really my scene. Generally I take things at a slower pace and I pride myself on the personal touch,' he explains.
He is finishing a portrait of Lady Dunn, a rather pensive, fleshy version of the more familiar pencil thin visage. It is avoiding the public image, the icon, that Halifax is all about. 'Lydia Dunn is a face which appears everywhere. But these are all public paintings. I said I would prefer to do something smaller and more intimate and she went for that immediately. My way is totally different to shutters clicking, a much calmer and personal thing.
Dunn was a pleasure to paint, because 'European women of 'that age' can be problematic.
'It can be easier doing older women here because they age better. Women are judged more on the way they look in Europe. I don't do women between the ages of 30 and 60. It makes me self-conscious because I know it matters to them.' He also found Lavender Patten 'rather nice to paint', although he made no particular effort to flatter her. She liked it anyway, he says. Portrait painters are often accused of flattery but Halifax maintains there is a balance between charity and honesty. He isn't in the air-brush business but at the same time he isn't out to be cruel.
'Usually if I flatter someone it is by mistake. I paint pictures that I am interested in. I'm happy not to be mean. The challenge is getting a three-dimensional object down on a flat surface; that is what makes it interesting. The skin tones the expression, I aim to capture all that, the fun thing is succeeding.' 'Of course you have to use a certain amount of tact, I won't go and put bleak lighting on someone. The lighting is very important, and if you do it correctly you can make everyone look good. But the point is to capture the way someone looks in private, a slightly contemplative mood, as if you have caught them unaware.' Achieving this effect takes time and since Halifax only works from real life (as opposed to photographs), he expects his subjects to commit themselves to fairly lengthy sittings. Although he doesn't necessarily research his subjects Halifax rates this time as invaluable, and almost therapeutic, for him and the sitter.
'Two hours is a long time to sit still, Some people don't like it, but it can almost be like meditation. ' Halifax started his career partly because he loved faces. At art school he began by painting his whole class. A year after graduation, he was a competitor for the 1993 BP Portrait Award at London's National Portrait Gallery, and his self-portrait provided the illustration for the exhibition poster. He says the Halifax image is not a statement but a practical attempt to deal with premature balding.