In the Gallery’s Weston Wing, eleven faces hang dejected; each cropped so tightly against their frame that there is nowhere else to look. All are paintings by Issy Wood, the young artist capturing the weight of a mind turned relentlessly inward.
These works are Wood’s contribution to the National Portrait Gallery’s Artist Focus series, which showcases contemporary artists innovating in portraiture. Often credited with the revival of figurative painting in a culture defined by its digital immersion, Wood is making her first and largest venture into painting herself.
For an artist averse to the spotlight, with very few images of herself online, self-portraiture may appear a surprising turn. But at just 33, her career has already gone in strikingly varied directions. Scouted as a model in her teens, she went on to write in sharp, acute prose and court the music industry with her melancholy bedroom-pop — all before leaving her label over her fraught relationship with the expectations of a public persona.
The tension that comes from her discomfort with performing identity is precisely what makes her work compelling. Using a muted colour palette in a style art historian Barry Schwabsky has called ‘perverted realism,’ the portraits offer an intimate, unidealised confrontation with the self. From cracked lips to a grazed eyebrow, they lean into a fear of intimacy and desire with a combative intensity.
Her expression throughout is despondent, veering on indifferent: that of an artist who owes nothing to no-one. Yet demand is surging, with major institutions and private collectors clamouring to add her work to their permanent collections. Amid the frenzy, she remains unafraid — building a reputation on rejecting powerful cultural tycoons, including Larry Gagosian and Mark Ronson.
Sitting at the cusp between Gen-Z and Millennial, Issy Wood’s gritty portraiture has tapped into the apathy and cynicism of a disaffected youth. Her self-deprecating paintings lay bare her insecurity, body-dysmorphia, struggles with mental health and addiction, restoring the imperfect in an age of airbrushed, algorithm-approved images.
These paintings are now on view at the National Portrait Gallery until the 28th February.
Photo by Mathew Browne on Unsplash
