Illusionary Portraits // Lee Wagstaff’ Interview

Interview // Shane Allen.

The beautifully rendered faces that emerge from Lee Wagstaff's paintings display how you can overcomplicate something so simple. Lee can take the most basic of patterns and somehow form them into photorealistic portraits. We caught up with the painter to talk about his process, bloodletting, and one his collectors David Bowie.

Lee Wagstaff Interview

How’s life treating you right now?

I am well thank you, busy working on several projects at once.

When was the first time you realised that you wanted to start painting?

I only started to use oils a few years ago, I had one of those starter sets but had never used it, I always thought oil painting was a lot of trouble.

When was the last time you got lost in one of your paintings, just to step back to look at it and realize you messed everything up?

I use the camera on my phone to see how it is going, it can be a bit strange to work in such a mediated way. I suppose it is not too dissimilar to other optical instruments like the camera obscura, camera lucida and curved mirrors that were used by artists from the Renaissance onwards.

A few weeks ago, it is not always so obvious when things are going wrong,

What is the pre-production/design process behind your paintings?

I ´ breed ` the faces using the AI programme, sometimes this may encompass a face from an historical source I might need to turn the face so that it is facing front. I do this by breeding it with another similar face that is looking the opposite way or a mirror image. For example I have used the Mona Lisa a few times as her facial features are quite striking. In the end there might only be around 10 % of her face but it can still be recognised.

Once I have the face the way I want it, I then match that with a pattern, the choices seem to present themselves. I have collated a library of patterns some traditional and some self-created. I then use various visual editing programmes,

This is where the magic really happens.

I started off using the faces of real people, I like symmetry and not many people have symmetrical faces, mostly models and actors. I soon realised using an ai programme would give me symmetry and an infinite number of variations. The programme allows for any faces to be fed into it so. I like to use characters from the backgrounds of historical paintings, especially Bosch or Breugal.

Why are patterns so prominent in your life?

I am interested in the history of ornamentation, how humans have felt the need to decorate objects and how some of these patterns have spread around the world or stayed very specifically within one region.

I am attracted to the sense of order that patterns bring into the world. Recently I have been creating my own patterns. I would like to make patterns devoid of meaning or symbol but it is difficult.

How did it feel to have David Bowie obtain your piece Shroud?

At the time it was very exciting, it was the opening of my graduation show at the Royal College of Art and his ´people` approached me and said “David is very interested in your work”.

What is the significance of that piece and what was the process of letting your own blood for it?

The very first time I got tattooed, it was the big triangle the length of my arm, that evening I washed my arm and tried really hard not to sleep on it. In the morning I woke up with an almost perfect impression of it on my bed sheet.

As I continued to extend the tattoo I would make blood prints from the fresh wounds.

Then I thought what if I could somehow make a whole body impression. I had seen several videos about the Shroud of Turin where artists and scholars would try and work out how it was made their realist were inconclusive further adding to the mystery. I decided I would make a screen print of a life-size negative photograph of my body. It was partly about creating a record of the exchange that happens with tattoos, ink goes in – blood comes out.

I needed someone to help me get the blood.

I was living in London at the time, a friends sister was a nurse but she lived in Liverpool a few hours away by train. When I arrived at her family home she had some needles but no syringe so we used one from an injet printer. ( This was the year 2000 so lots of people topped up their printers using syringes and cheaper unofficial ink). It was a very non medical procedure, she took the blood whilst I watched tv with her brother and her mum made us tea.

We took about half a litre of blood and put it in a thermos flask and I returned to London. So that the blood would not coagulate I had to then rotate the flask slowly throughout the journey. Due to regulations, I was not allowed to print it at the college. So I printed it at home that evening in my living room, if you look closely there is a tiny paw print our cat stepped in some blood and ran over the cloth.

I printed two one went to David and the other to the Victoria & Albert museum.

The work is significant to me as it is a naive realisation of an image I had in my mind. It was a mirroring or perhaps homage to a mysterious and powerful object. The fact that something I printed in my living room in a housing co-op in Deptford in South East London, with such a farcical back story, using only rudimentary tools could be of interest to people in far flung corners of the world is quite gratifying.

Since your paintings are so stylised, what is the most important factor in successfully pulling one off?

There is a sweet spot that I aim for where the face is emerging but not immediately obvious. Sometimes it is too obvious for my taste sometime it is invisible. The paintings are usually 60 x 80cm which is not too big or too small almost mirror size. If the viewer is quite close they just see the lines there is a secondary effect that I enjoy when the patterns start to dance. Human vision finds it really difficult to concentrate on one spot. When that concentration is lost the eyes wander across the canvas and it’s a bit difficult to control the brain is looking for order. As the viewer moves further away the face starts to emerge. Strangely the best way to get the full effect is to look through the camera on a smartphone,

You’ve painted so many portraits in this pattern style, do you approach them with a more formulaic approach, or does each piece have its own quirks and obstacles to overcome?

I have a ritual the canvases take several weeks to prepare before I even begin. I work on several pieces at the same time, sometimes I get bored or frustrated sometimes the colour paint is even an obstacle. I use different brands depending on the quality of the colour. I use this one red paint which paints beautifully it has a great constancy but I don’t really like the colour red, so I enjoy the process but I am not really so happy with the result. Also my collectors seem to like red paintings the most.

Believe it or not but I am trying to reach a point of simplification but I feel I can only do this if the patterns get more complicated first.

are many pieces that get rejected and painted over. For me, painting is a kind of meditation or intense daydream. Sometimes it works out and things are better afterwards sometimes I just have to start again.