Will’s 70th Birthday

This was the painting that kicked off my obsession with ‘Zoom portraits’.

In May 2020, my former boss held his 70th birthday party on Zoom, and the gallery of faces was filled with unexpected and fascinating people: politicians popped up next to psychoanalysts, CEOs alongside activists. I found that I was spending more time looking at the people on the call than listening to what was being said. The temptation to speculate was irresistible. From this small window into a domestic home, I found myself extrapolating what might be going on behind the scenes: the state of a marriage, a financial situation; this person’s evident ego, that person’s apparent distraction.

Howard Hodgkin was my artistic inspiration: his blurring of the boundaries between abstract and figurative art, his bold brushwork and vibrant colour palette. Hodgkin plays with the idea of the frame around a painting, making it an integral part of the image, which is also true of the distinctive Zoom-grid. Those black boxes, which divide and connect in equal measure, have become a symbol for this era.