31/07/2021

Thatcher - that filigree fan of iron hair, the controlled intensity of her gaze, the perfect skin, the pearls, the blue suits. Her ministers were scared of her, not scared that she'd cry or faint but scared in an archaic way of her hard will-to-power.

Every portrait is a contrivance by artist and sitter - when a woman wears make-up it's a double contrivance, she has already begun the journey of self-imagining, so there's already views in the relationship between artist/sitter, sitter/self before a brush is picked up.

I've been painting men pretty much exclusively but was side-tracked by Thatcher because of her eye-catchingly powerful gaze and because she used 'feminine' accoutrements (pearls, handbag, hairspray etc). I wonder what she'd have looked like in mens' clothes without the theatrical presentation?

She was said to use her femininity in dealings with male colleagues, but because women with her degree of power are rare I was curious to look at her for a while, to get a sense of how this femininity manifested itself. She looks a little Zvengali - look into the eyes, the eyes! and the green skin - men are from Mars, aren't they? Aliens have green skin, don't they? or maybe she has fine lizeard-like scales....

You can categorize power portraits : brilliant leader gazing into distance at vision of wonderful world s/he has created; leader doing something emblatic and significant with small child/ spinning wheel etc; leader covered in booty to show he got the lot (can't think of any female ones of this category); leader gazing fixedly at sculptor/painter/photographer as though directly at - me!! to show that even the little people are in their mighty minds.

It feels a bit weird to be painting these leaders, it feels cheeky, powerful, nosy - I can make them into anything!