Black is Beautiful : Portraits by Sir Idris
Self-taught painter Sir Idris is known for his stunning, intimate portraits of Black women and men. Having lived all over the world and currently residing in Europe, Sir Idris draws most of his inspiration from people watching. He closely studies the expressions of others and carefully renders the gaze of each person he paints. In this interview Sir Idris discusses the inspiration behind his work and the significance of painting people in their everyday lives.
Hi Sir Idris! Tell me about your background and where your creative journey began.
Its hard to capture my background in one sentence. before anything else I am human, I am African and a citizen of the world. I was born in Accra, Ghana. I have traveled and lived in many places from an early age. I did some schooling and still continue to study as a human. I studied marketing as undergrad at Long Island University in Brooklyn and Economics at City College in Harlem as grad student.
I am now and have been back here in Europe for about 5 to 6 years now.
I spend the majority of my weekends in the Netherlands where I have a small studio space to work and practice art whenever I have time. I love traveling and love seeing different places and its people and culture if there is any to see. I draw my inspiration from people watching and listening to music.
What led you to portraiture, and how has your work evolved over time?
Curiosity actually, I will say I am an avid people watcher, I am really fascinated by the way we interact as humans, whether by ourselves or with others. I believe our facial expressions and body languages can tell more stories than our mouths and tongues can.
I am drawn to faces with strong features, rather than a so called pretty face. My first portrait was of an old man I met in Turnout, Belgium. Looking back it was a really bad piece but it was his facial features and the manner in which he was looking that lead me to him. And talking to him, I learned more about him, and about myself and how I saw and still see people. Yeah, my love for painting faces was born there and never left.
Art has always been my safe haven. As a kid i would draw to entertain myself. You dont want to know how many Fido Dido figures I have drawn. Art is my therapy. Especially now, with all that is going on with COVID and the injustice that we as Black people have been facing for generations.
How do you select your subjects, and do you work from live models, photographs, or a combination of both?
I draw what I see around me. I am Inspired by everyday people. I am inspired by photography, music, videos. a face may come from everywhere; from social media, to the lady in the supermarket or a magazine. I use features of different faces and put them together to create my own faces basically. I never work with live models and I am not sure I’m any good at all.
I prefer and enjoy making artworks from unconventional mediums, and ways/tools, that please my mind and soul, I make art for me, and it’s mostly based on my experiences in certain places and times. I try to project what I want to see rather than what I saw and experienced. And I hope it will be translated to whomever view the “finished” piece(s). I know and believe people have and will have their opinion in the end but it’s more for me than for anyone else.
You often paint your subjects close-up, zooming in on their face and expression. This creates a more intimate experience for the viewer. What led you to paint portraits in this way?
Never thought of it this way. But yeah, I do. What can I say. I paint what I see and want to see more of. I don’t think I have a specific style of painting except making us, as black people, look as beautiful as we were made to look. Accepting oneself has been my focal point. I want to convey a message of acceptance of ones origin, skin color, roots and whatever makes me and us as people of African decent.
In all actuality, I find people very fascinating, especially those who have changed themselves physically and or by design, and I refer to this as people being in an altered state. Some of us are trying to look more and more European than Africans. The skin bleaching and the hair thing nowadays has led me to using more black paint than my usual mixed colors and this has been a great pleasure, and it’s now becoming my thing. Making the skin tones and details fascinates me more than the finished work. This is reflected in my recent body of work, including “ Black Diamond”, “3%” and “Black Pastel”. I see my art like jazz, I can improvise and change them in so many shapes and forms and it will still stand as art because it stretches the boundaries of one being put in a box.
My art represents my people and me. It represents my blackness to the world - to see and love, appreciate and respect. Our history and any other history has no expiration date so I try to focus on the future where we get to tell our own story to the world rather than the other way around. My work is and will tell our story with love and pride.
And that’s what I believe art should do. It should be used to express beauty, ugliness and pain because it’s about my expression and me expressing my feelings and experiences without holding back because you never know who you could inspire just by sharing your experience.
What does a typical day in the studio look like, and how has your art practice shifted in the past few years?
There is no such thing as a typical day for me. I have a studio in my house so I can work whenever I want. Sometimes thats in the morning, and most of the time I am more productive at night. I always play music while working and don’t allow others in my space. I often work on several paintings at once. And I love using my hands and fingers to paint.
Which artists have impacted your work?
Other artist inspires the artist in me. Artist from the past and today are the source of my inspiration. I can’t name names because there are so many and I have also been compared with some of the greatest of our times today which is kinda scary if may say. but one cannot ignore and or not acknowledge the people who paved the way for us. I will say first and for most that I am deeply inspired by the art of music. Musicians such as Jimi Hendrix, Jazz legends such as Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Dizzy and Nina Simone, Sun Ra just to name a few. Music in general has been a part of my life and work.
What are your future goals and aspirations?
At first I wanted to just paint. And I did. Then I wanted to sell and I sold my first piece in Germany back in ‘07. Then I wanted to work for myself as an artist and that happened in 2010. Now I want to share with the world on a big stage. I want my work in museums for the world to see. I want the world to see us in our everyday lives rather than what they have been taught about us.
Follow Sir Idris on Instagram: siridrisx