Marc Newson, Erdem and Don McCullin immortalised in hyperrealist paintings

Marc Newsom, Sir Don McCullin and Erdem Moralioglu were in for a shock, when Jason Brooks unveiled his latest realist portraits at Marlborough Fine Art in London. Having sat for hundreds of source photographs snapped by Brooks, and not been present while he painted the work, none of these percipient cultural figures had seen the finished, highly realistic results until opening night.

‘Some people might be more enamoured than others,’ laughed Brooks prior to the private view. The group of sitters – which also includes Tim Marlow, Will Self, Malcolm Venville and Sue Webster – are all friends of the painter, and were ‘pleased – in varying degrees – to collaborate on the project’.

‘I picked them because they each have a very discerning eye,’ Brooks continues. Each figure, cropped tightly around the face, is hung at eye-level in the London gallery, so that ‘the viewer becomes the subject – the paintings examine you.’

February 2018