CRICKET OUTTA COMPTON: EDWARD SUTCLIFFE'S BP TRAVEL AWARD COLLECTION | DegreeArt.com The Original Online Art Gallery

CRICKET OUTTA COMPTON: EDWARD SUTCLIFFE'S BP TRAVEL AWARD COLLECTION


BP PORTRAIT AWARD WINNING ARTIST
EDWARD SUTCLIFFE EXCLUSIVE ARTWORK

"CRICKET OUTTA COMPTON" BP PORTRAIT AWARD PROJECT

In 2014 Edward Sutcliffe won the BP PORTRAIT TRAVEL AWARD for his proposal to document the Compton Cricket Club in Los Angeles. The club was formed to help encourage and empower the disaffected youth of an area synonymous with poverty and crime. By spending time with the team, either on the pitch or in their everyday lives, and seeing the impact that playing cricket has had, Sutcliffe has produced portraits that show a fusion of two very different cultures and how the game of cricket, with its ethos of fair play and respect, has been embraced by this community.

'Ted' and 'Ricardo'

“I love meeting the people I paint; it really is one of the best parts of my job”, says Sutcliffe, who has also been shortlist- ed for the BP Travel Award on two previous occasions. “If you work as a portrait painter you have got to like people, and I carry some unforgettable memories of the sitters I have met. A good relationship between the artist and the sitter will give the final work chemistry, energy and soul”.

Compton Cricket Club was established in 1995 by homelessness activist Ted Hayes and British movie producer Katy Haber as an initiative to get disadvantage youngsters off the streets of Compton, where gang-related violence, particularly between rivals Bloods and Crips, was claiming around 100 lives every year.

According to the club’s mission statement, its goal is ‘to curb the negative effects of gang activities and encourage civility and good citizenship’. In the twenty years since its formation, the club has maintained the core members from its early days while continuing to attract local youth. Affectionately known as the Homies and the Popz, the club has tored Ireland, Australia and England, even taking tea at Buckingham Palace.

To view the full collection of BP Portrait Travel Award paintings click here

'Sergio' and 'Steve'

ABOUT ED

Born in Walsall in 1978, Sutcliffe studied Art with Art History at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and completed a post-graduate diploma at Central Saint Martins, London. He is now based in London and Dubai.

His paintings have been selected for exhibition in the BP Portrait Award on seven occasions. In his 2014 entry, he explored the idea of mimicry by painting of the art forger John Myatt and then commissioned Chinese artist Li Wu Da to paint a distorted, mirror image of the portrait at a foot of the panel, therefore creating a copy, of a copy, of a copycat. The undoubtable precision of his hyper-photorealistic style is accompanied by a skill to bring real emotion and a sense of the sitter’s character to the fore, due in no small part to the fact that each of his sitters is painted, not necessarily for their aesthetic, but for a well-researched, considered, intriguing and curated reason.

COPYCAT, 2014 BP ENTRY

Materials: Oil on Canvas
Size (H x W x D): 150 x 65 x 5 cm
SOLD (*Commissions available starting from £8,000.00)

This piece has been awarded a place in the BP National Portait Award 2014 at the National Portrait Gallery. Continuing Ed’s interest in imitation, the man featured in the painting is John Myatt “From talented chart-topping songwriter and art teacher, John Myatt went to Brixton prison for being involved in ‘the biggest art fraud of the 20th century’”. He set up a business in 1983 offering ‘Original Fakes’ for as little as £150, he copied Picassos, Monets etc some of which ended up at auction and sold for thousands thought to be originals, it all caught up with him in the 90s and he was sent to prison when the ex-partner of the dealer putting his work on the market, blew the whistle.

So already an interesting subject for his painting, to add another layer, Ed decided to have a smaller ‘mirrored’ copy of the portrait made by a Chinese artist working from the village of Dafen (located just north of Hong Kong, Dafen is filled with artists that copy paintings of the western canon), he distorted an image of his paint- ing first in photoshop first so that the copy would take on a different dimension, then attached this copy to the bottom of his painting in reflection form – thus creating and remarkable work of ‘a copy of a copy of a copyist’!

COMMISSIONS

EDWARD SUTCLIFFE IS AVAILABLE FOR COMMISSIONS STARTING FROM £8,000.00

Head and Shoulders Portrait:

20 x 30cm - from £8,000.00

45 x 30cm - from £12,800.00

60 x 40cm - from £16,000.00

Half Length Portrait: from £19,500.00

Full Body Portrait:  from £29,600.00

For more information contact:

Isobel@DegreeArt.com

The Outta of Compton collection will be on display at the National Portrait Gallery until the 20th September.

To view all of Ed's available artwork, please click here

To download this article as a PDF - click here

As featured in:

The Independent on Sunday

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