WEBVTT

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(slow piano music)

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<v ->I'm tuned into that thing of looking for</v>

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things in people and I can see things in people's faces and

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I could just see so much in Catherine's face and

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oh that is just, I could just see it all.

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<v ->So what would have happened if you hadn't liked my face?</v>

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(laughing)

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What would you have done?

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<v ->I think that I would always find a way,</v>

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but in this circumstance it was just instant.

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<v ->[Woman Off Camera] And do you work from photographs?</v>

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<v ->Yes, photographs, and then we'll have sittings with the</v>

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painting, so I'll bring it down here,

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which would be tricky to get this here

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but we'll be able to do it, and just have a couple of

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sittings with it, you know, some sittings with the painting.

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So I've developed a way of working which is very much when

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I'm with someone I just like to mostly talk and just sort of

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suck up things as it were, and then I'll just

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sort of replay that when I'm back up in the studio.

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My portraits are like this because I want the face and the

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body language for me is enough, I actually don't really want

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to know that much about my subject before I meet them.

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I want to get everything by intuition

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and then see how that kind of plays out.

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There's so much there, there's just a universe there.

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And I can't even contemplate putting anything else in there

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that could tell more of a story than what's going on in the

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subtleties of the body language and

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what I can see in someone's face.

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I don't even have to think very much, I'm operating on that

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kind of level of just feeling my way along

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and It's like I feel in sync with Catherine

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and it's just funny how those things happen.

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<v ->Well when I saw the various options</v>

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for artists it was just instant. - Right

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<v ->I didn't have to think about the others,</v>

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yours was the style and the approach.

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It wasn't too busy,

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it wasn't trying to be complex, but there was a depth there.

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I was very nervous about what it was going to look like and

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I was so relieved when you sent through the first

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(sigh of relief)

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That's right. That's good.

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<v ->Were on the right track - Yep, Yep</v>

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<v ->I mean I look at someone's face straight away and then I</v>

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looked you, I wasn't aware of what you looked like,

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<v ->Right - and I just looked you</v>

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up and then bang, straight away.

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My approach is really, it's very collaborative.

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I would never come in and say "This is

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what you're going to look like".

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Part of the process for me, part of the interesting thing

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for me is what people think they look like too.

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<v Catherine>You're in the artist's hands.</v>

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You can't be saying how, I mean I can

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have a little comment here and there, but no

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the way it works you can't be interfering with it,

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you'd compromise the whole structure and the whole design.

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<v ->Not that you want to think too consciously about that,</v>

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but there are other really important things that you need to

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be open to and to think about,

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so there are a lot of universal things that are

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really important in who Catherine is,

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what she's done, how she's got to where she has,

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the way she has, there's the personal, there's

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the kind of universal, its a multidimensional thing that we

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do when we work on a portrait and we just have to be open to

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those things and what that portrait can do

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in the future, what it can say to people.

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<v ->And actually that was Mat's point, that you have to think</v>

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about something that's going to be enduring,

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and not just for the moment or the present,

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and I think that was an important point.