Tyler Kennett Portfolio 2020

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"We Bleed Colour", from my exhibition - "We Bleed Colour" (Spray Paint, Acrylic Paint, Oil Paint, Oil Pastel on 60x80 cm canvas)  

I love this painting, I am very proud of it. It is the main piece from my exhibition which was held at The Stables Studio in my home town, Folkestone. I wanted, with these portraits, to capture a sense of youthfulness by using lots of broad and bold colours. The main colour to which I used in this specific piece is crimson. The reason for that is, Matthew (the subject) lost his brother early this year (2020), and so I wanted to incorporate his brother into this painting perhaps into the background, and so in the left side, above Matthew's shoulder is Matthew's brother, Steven. With crimson being the colour of blood, and Steven being Matthews blood relative, I felt it was only right to show Matthew's loss in this painting. The stream of blood from his eye shows the mourning for his brother.

I took inspiration here, predominantly from Romero Britto and Andrew Salgado. I adore Britto's use of colour and so I wanted to highlight my respect for him in the backgrounds of these pieces.

Andrew Salgado is heavily referenced in my work by the use of colour and oil pastel - oil paint combination, a technique I picked up from studying his work. This combination allowed my portraits to become works of bright colour.

I also talked about this exhibition with a local magazine "Folk Life".

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"The Look", from my exhibition - "We Bleed Colour" (Spray Paint, Acrylic Paint, Oil Paint, Oil Pastel on 60x80 cm canvas)

I Have always regarded Connor (the subject) as one of my best friends, he has been there for me in dark times and has made me a better person. He plays a huge role in who I am as a person and so I wanted to paint him in a heroic light. This piece was more of an experiment with different styles, it was the first piece I created in this exhibition and therefor the start of a new style.

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"For Mama", from my exhibition - "We Bleed Colour" (Spray Paint, Acrylic Paint, Oil Paint, Oil Pastel and mixed media on 60x80 cm canvas)

My mum is a fantastic artist, she taught me how to draw at a very early age. I wanted to paint her as she is a huge part of my identity. She works so hard in social work to help people and so I found a leaflet with the words "your kindness will save lives" and put it on her cheeks because she is one of the kindest people I know. I took heavy inspiration from Andrew Salgado in this piece, adding finer details on the eyes and nose.

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"Garden Of Eden", from my exhibition - "We Bleed Colour" (Spray Paint, Acrylic Paint, Oil Paint, Oil Pastel and mixed media on 60x80 cm canvas)

This is a self-portrait. I wanted this painting to be completely different from anything I had produced before. I still added lots of colours, even painting the leaves blue... yet I didn't add squares with patterns in them in the background. I think I wanted this to be different because it is a painting of myself and how I want people to perceive me. As humans, we care an awful lot about what people think of us as individuals, and so I wanted to replicate this. Me covering my left eye and hiding behind nature symbolises the truth I hid until I was 16 (a reference to 16 at the bottom, in the centre of the painting). That truth is my sexuality.  

I think for a long time I was scared about what people would think of me, but it's natural to think that (a reference to nature/natural element in the painting here too). I think this painting is very powerful in the sense that it has many interpretations and meanings. I loved creating this and being playing in different colours.

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"She Knows", from my exhibition - "We Bleed Colour" (Spray Paint, Acrylic Paint, Oil Paint, Oil Pastel and on 60x80 cm canvas)

This is a portrait of Mia, I have always regarded Mia as one of the most intelligent people I've met, she knows a lot about what people are up to and what's going on in the world and how to resolve situations quickly. I struggled with this portrait on how to make it stand out and so I decided to paint a bold orange crown on her, and spray paint her eyes yellow to represents that nothing gets past her and that she isn't naive.  

This was possibly one of the hardest paintings I've painted as I struggled a lot with the colour scheme but I got there in the end.  

In the bottom left corner words read, ‘the fate we share’, this symbolises an experience me and her shared which represents humanity and compassion in death and life.

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Portrait of my brother, Charlie (Oil paint on A1 paper)

I am studying "Identity", so I wanted to paint someone who impacts my identity. Charlie is my 15-year-old brother to whom I'm very close to. I wanted to replicate humanity in the eyes and so I made them very haunting and human. I left it unfinished as I liked how it looked with pieces missing.

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Portrait of Russell Tovey, (Oil paint on A4 paper)

Russell Tovey is arguably my favourite actors. Everything he does for the LGBTQ+ community (which I am a part of) is amazing. I loved working with oil paint in this piece as it allowed me to replicate humanity and experiment with the finer details within portraiture. I like the suit in this piece as it tells the viewer that this person is flamboyant and confident. I love replicating characteristics within portraiture.

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Andrew Salgado's "LEVELS", (Acrylic paint on A4 Canvas board)

"LEVELS" is such a beautiful piece by Salgado. I love the orange and blue colours and the tones he uses within those colours like red, yellow and green. I gridded this painting up and started layering on different colours and tones to fit the reference painting. It was quite a difficult piece as the eyes are quite complex. I loved painting the hair and playing around with different tools. I used a pallet knife to implement scratchy textures in the top right and left corners.  

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Photo from reference in the style of Jimmy Law and Lucian Freud (Acrylic paint on Canvas)

Similar to the one I had already completed, for this painting I wanted to incorporate my style as well as Jimmy Law and Lucian Freud's. I added a white border to the face learning from the reference of one of Law's 2014 works and replicated the same style as Freud with the skin tone and realism. I am very happy with how this turned out as I feel it incorporates both Law and Freud's styles very well.

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Paul Wright's painting of Austin Healy (Acrylic paint on Canvas)

I was drawn to this painting. When I first saw it, it made me question how the subject was thinking/feeling at that moment. I am also drawn to the colour green that is heavily represented in this piece.

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Jimmy Law 2014 (Acrylic paint on Canvas)

I found this in Jimmy Law's 2014 gallery collection here. I think it portrays cunning ambiguity and draws the viewer into what this subject is thinking about or feeling. I love the tone I have captured and the way that facial features like the mouth, eyes, nose and ears turned out.

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Andrew Salgado - "Youth in Revolt" (Acrylic paint on Canvas)

This is my take on Andrew Salgado's Youth in Revolt. Everything about my version is different. The subject is darker with more haunting tones and brighter with golden highlights across the forehead. I loved creating this piece as I learned so much about human emotion and tone. I love how Salgado portrays youthfulness in his work and so I was very much drawn to this piece right from the beginning.  

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Portrait of my brother (Water colour pencil on A2 paper)

I wanted to work on my angles for portraiture so I started working on portraits taken from high and low angles. I used  

Faber Castell Watercolour Pencils 24 Pack  

to create this. I love how even with a few basic colours I managed to replicate skin tone so efficiently. I also love the way the background looks with the watercolour marks.

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Human Form page - Identity Sketchbook (A4)

Here are some sketches of me understanding Human Form and the components which make up human anatomy. I found some pictures from magazines that I also stuck in.

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Sketch of one of Jimmy Law's 2014 paintings (Charcoal on A2)

To show my understanding of how Jimmy Law sketched this painting I decided to replicate the reference onto paper using charcoal and graphite. It was very hard to achieve as the reference I used was the painting and so I had to make the painting as realistic as possible to sketch it.

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Perspective drawing  (Oil Pastel on A4 paper)

Here, I am experimenting with just oil pastel and how I can play around with the tones within perspective portraiture. I like the blue and purple tones I have created here. I found this reference on google whilst searching for perspective portraiture.

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2 part commission  (Spray Paint, Acrylic Paint, Oil Paint, Oil Pastel and on 60x80 cm canvas)

I received a commission for 2 paintings of a pair of siblings In November, right after my exhibition. Here is one of the portraits of a boy called Joshua. I loved playing around with the light and dark element and referencing the emotion within those colours.