Veronica Watson:
All Together Now

“A feeling, a period, a mood.” Mike Pinnington on Veronica Watson, whose portraits – celebrated in new publication All Together Now – currently adorn the Bluecoat’s upstairs gallery…

What does it mean to paint portraiture today? It seems like an obvious question; we live, after all, in an age in which people make more and more images of themselves and each other than ever before. Many such images proliferate on social media platforms, of course, advertising our highly mannered and carefully curated striving for and presentation of the perfect lifestyle. Many more never make the cut, floating, gone and unnoticed in the cloud.

But what if we ask what it means to paint rather than simply capture? What does it mean to linger over and live – at close quarters – with somebody’s likeness over a period of time beyond that which it takes to click a button on our camera phones (the result sometimes deleted in an instant)? Suddenly, patience is required. Care and attention to detail take precedence over our choice of filters, and the editing of a digital image to within an inch of its life. A painting, once started, is not so easily, carelessly, forgotten.

Then consider what it means to have brought this approach and attention to detail to painting portraits over a period of almost 20 years, witnessing the comings and goings of a specific, occasionally evolving group, and rendering them in paint, pen and graphite. This position, it goes without saying, is much less common – and more valuable – than our slapdash, haphazard addiction to using a smart phone’s camera.

As a genre, portraiture has had (and its practitioners will have felt that they have had) to adapt – with the times, with culture and with developments in technology and accessibility to image-making. Equally, power, wealth and social standing are no longer the primary signifiers of a painting. Or, at least, the expectation that they will be is much less so than it was. Quite right. A portrait painted today should capture a broader cross-section of society than in previous eras.

Such thoughts are swirling around my head after having met, spoken with and watched artist Veronica Watson – a founding member of Blue Room, Bluecoat’s inclusive arts project for learning disabled and neurodivergent adults – at work. Since it was suggested to her on joining the initiative at its outset in 2007/8, she has first drawn, and more recently, painted, the staff, visitors, fellow Blue Room members, other artists and volunteers who have come through its doors.

She works from photographs, in-part she tells me because she likes to work undisturbed with a bit of peace and quiet. “I like listening to music. Nice quiet music…” otherwise, she says, “I can’t get anything done.” Rather than simply being satisfied with producing a copy of her subject as one might with a phone, she captures something more layered, more valuable, and certainly more interesting – how the person was feeling that day; a period in their lives; a mood.

Walking with Veronica around the Bluecoat’s main gallery, currently a project space in which many of her works line the gallery’s walls, I ask how her subjects react when seeing their likeness stare back at them. “Oh my god… How did you do that?!” said one, she tells me. Then, in turn, we move on, chatting about a number of the different people she’s painted.

Because of the years Veronica has been with Blue Room, painting and drawing the people who populate the Bluecoat, inevitably she has seen change and captured moments and periods in their lives. “This is my friend. She hasn’t been for a while. She’s not well.” And “Him, he’s not here anymore.” A witness to and chronicler of generations, here’s a “Mother and daughter,” Veronica explains. A vividly painted checked shirt-wearing man catches my eye. Veronica tells me: “he passed away.”

As we discuss her subjects, then, it puts into sharp focus the inevitable effect it must have, of spending so much time with people, day-to-day, and with their photographs, that being a portrait artist entails. But, in these works, of course, Veronica also leaves indelible traces of herself. The portraits capture not only the individuals she has chosen to immortalise over more than a decade, reflecting the success and longevity of the project, but also evidence of her own development and evolution as an artist.

I ask about her process and the mixture of painting and drawing assembled before us. In the case of the paintings, a more recent development she tells me, she sketches first, then builds up the work in paint (acrylic). I ask whether she has a preference, between drawing and painting. These days, “it’s more the painting,” she says. Together, though, the paintings and drawings make a fine contrast and demonstrate Veronica’s grasp of both.

In addition to the different mediums, there are various sizes of canvas. I ask her about whether or not she has a preference in terms of scale. Spoken like a true artist, she replies that: “It doesn’t matter,” indicating that it’s more a case of what’s to hand than anything else. That the work’s the most important thing to her.

It’s noticeable, however, that amongst them all, there’s only one self-portrait. This is mirrored by her shy and humble manner. When I ask her about this, she’s reluctant to engage on why this might be. But this belies her being a dedicated and vocal self-advocate: Veronica has spoken about the rights of learning disabled people, and has presented at numerous arts industry conferences across the UK, for greater acceptance and celebration of learning disabled artists. It’s an important point and, in-part, has led to the making of the book this piece was written for.

The breadth and progress of Veronica’s work has been documented within its pages. It has been my pleasure to have contributed this short text, to hopefully complement the works celebrated throughout the book, and across the years. Asking her about this, and what she thinks, she replies: “I said to [Blue Room Studio Facilitator] Becky [Peach] this morning: I’m proud of my work.”

Mike Pinnington  

Images, from top: Veronica during her gallery residency, © the Bluecoat; exhibition photography, © Kieran Irvine 

All Together Now: Portraits by Veronica Watson continues at the Bluecoat until 4 May; the All Together Now publication is available to buy online and from the ticket and information desk at the Bluecoat