Parenting
Sometimes I find myself wondering
Of how my life would have been
Or could have been
A lot more exciting,
A lot less distressing,
Maybe even interesting
If it hand’t been
For my parents meddling
In things I find myself in
But then I would not have been
If it hadn’t been
For their sweet loving
That brought me into being
To a world of living
And breathing,
Warm human beings.
Dennison Uy
05/27/2009
Image credits: Artist’s Parents (after Dix)
Winner of The Holburne Dukes Portrait Prize 2006
The winner of this year’s biennial competition was announced at a reception at the Holburne Museum on Monday 30 October. The panel of judges, including the artist Sir Peter Blake, the Times art critic Rachel Campbell-Johnston, and writer and broadcaster Bel Mooney unanimously agreed the winner as The Artist’s Parents (after Dix) by Vincent Brown.
Sir Peter Blake commented that the portrait was ‘a beautiful and tender painting which showed great insight into the characters of the sitters.
Sir Peter felt confident that Vincent Brown would produce an interesting commission for the Holburne Museum with the £5,ooo prize.RachelCampbell-Johnston of the Times said that she loved the ‘unsparing exactitude of the portrait, its bleakness and the totemic feel of the figures’ She felt that the painting also demonstrated ‘great technical competence’.
Bel Mooney revealed that she was immediately drawn to the portrait as there was something touching about it which reminded her of her own parents. She said that ‘looking at the figures in the painting you feel as if you are looking at a real life story of two people; in a sense it is a novel in paint’.