Latoya by Alan Coulson 2011 I have had this image on my desktop (and have been meaning to blog about it) since I first saw it in the BP Portrait Awards at the National Portrait Gallery in August. It didn’t win. It wasn’t even awarded any of the prizes, but I find it so beautiful, so arresting, that it certainly won something in my book. I don’t know what it is… the pastel blue eyelashes against skin so human you have to stop yourself reaching out to touch it; the turban-slash-mid-sixties-Mancunian-housewife headscarf that could be covering an impressive hair-do…or a bald head. Could mean she is about to mop the floor or is curling her hair for a night on the town. The fact that you are never 100% sure is Latoya is a man or a woman or just a man who wants to be a woman…The fact that she is so darn beautiful! The National Portrait Gallery gives this description, but somehow I don’t think that’s the whole story…somehow I think there is more to Latoya than meets the eye.

Latoya by Alan Coulson 2011

I have had this image on my desktop (and have been meaning to blog about it) since I first saw it in the BP Portrait Awards at the National Portrait Gallery in August.

It didn’t win. It wasn’t even awarded any of the prizes, but I find it so beautiful, so arresting, that it certainly won something in my book. I don’t know what it is… the pastel blue eyelashes against skin so human you have to stop yourself reaching out to touch it; the turban-slash-mid-sixties-Mancunian-housewife headscarf that could be covering an impressive hair-do…or a bald head. Could mean she is about to mop the floor or is curling her hair for a night on the town. The fact that you are never 100% sure is Latoya is a man or a woman or just a man who wants to be a woman…The fact that she is so darn beautiful!

The National Portrait Gallery gives this description, but somehow I don’t think that’s the whole story…somehow I think there is more to Latoya than meets the eye.

Tags: alan Coulson Laytoya 2011 by Alan Coulson national portrait gallery BP portrait award art Painting portrait