Artist Conrad Frankel’s debut UK solo exhibition The First People opens on November 19th at Art Work Space - a new independent gallery, recently launched in The Hempel Hotel, London. The exhibition of oil paintings takes its inspiration and subject matter from 19-century photographic portraits and the particular intensities and abstractions that occurred while the technology was still in its infancy.

Frankel has always been interested in portraiture and in 2006, having spent several years painting from life with vivid colours, he started working from black-and-white photography. An avid collector of market-found artefacts and objects, he found himself drawn to antique photographs, the characters within them and the secrets and stories they hold. Frankel was also fascinated by the process of early photography, which required the sitter to remain still, looking into the camera lens, for up to five seconds. The resulting images have an intensity that is almost haunting, with the force of the sitter’s gaze becoming, at once, hypnotically vulnerable and disconcertingly intimidating - an irony not wasted on Frankel who notes that the subjects may well have never experienced photography before and would probably have found the whole process intimidating themselves. Of the photographs the artist says, ‘The fact that exposure time could last for five seconds or more means that they look back at us with greater intensity and vulnerability than in present-day photographs. Seeing these images is like reading a diary – we are looking into a ready-made, private world, and they look back at us like no modern subject does’.

This is not the only duality in the photographs to interest Frankel who is attracted by the heavily directed placement of the subjects, usually smartly dressed and surrounded by elaborate sets; inspired by, and commissioned as an affordable alternative to, traditional portrait painting. ‘They were made as intimate family records without the self-consciousness of art photography, but yet they are amazing displays, with people dressed in their Sunday best, their heads fixed still by neck braces, their eyes transfixed by the slow exposure lens.’ says the artist, who is struck by the unnaturally choreographed nature of something that is intensely personal.

Frankel painstakingly recreates these images, combining several painting techniques and building layers of oils in order to capture the intense qualities contained in the original photographs. By enlarging them, often to life-size or greater, from the original miniatures, the artist also increases their force – mesmerising the viewer who is compelled to engage with these enduring spirits.

Frankel’s talent has already been recognised by his peers with him being awarded both the Jerwood Student Prize for Drawing and the de Laszlo Prize for Portraiture, With ‘The First People’ at Art Work Space recognition of this emerging young talent is sure to continue to grow.

About the Artist

Conrad Frankel was born and raised on a farm in County Cork, Ireland. Isolated except for from the people that worked in and around the farm, he developed a strong interest in the stories of these characters, who seemed to come from another era. Frankel gained a degree in Biblical and Theological studies at Trinity College, Dublin, before moving to London to do an MA at City and Guilds of London Art School. During his time studying for his MA he received the Jerwood Prize for Drawing and the de Laszlo Prize for Portraiture.

Past exhibitions include:

2007 Drawing Breath, Australia (Group show) The Boyle Arts Festival, Ireland (Group show) 2006 Obsession, Sartorial Contemporary Art, London (Group show) Young Gods, Clapham Art Gallery. London (Group show) Jerwood Special Drawing Exhibition, London (Group show) 2005 Neither Flesh nor Fleshless, Clapham Art Gallery, London (Group Show) 2004 Untitled, Metatron Gallery, Dublin (Group show) 2003 Untitled, The Private Collectors Gallery, Dublin (Two-man show) Conrad Frankel, 15 St Nicholas Place, Dublin (Solo sho)

‘The First People’ is Conrad Frankel’s debut solo show in the UK.