Portraits: As their eyes stare out I want to wear the gaze on my fingers.

There is a very good second-hand bookshop opposite Melbourne University....it has been there for many years. My friends and myself are frequent browsers of this eclectic array of world publishing, something this highly charged global community prefer to ignore now that the internet rules the visual world. I buy old catalogues from this store regularly to cut up and make my Historings from. I accept this as my way to unleash the little portraits back to life......a life ornamental in a world lost to the decorative......

Bleeding hearts.

Portraiture has forever been my most treasured indulgence, as an artist. When I was much younger I remember seeing a portrait of a young girl by Amedeo Modigliani...a Jewish/ Italian painter in Paris around the time of the early 20th Century.

Whilst I knew nothing of art or what the painting meant.....I was entranced by it. The full coloured eyes were very unusual....just filled up with colour. As I stared into the painting my thoughts were to go home and try to copy this image.....I knew I could draw but to try and paint a portrait with paint...was something I hadn't even thought of doing.

My Grandfather had given me a book on portraits for a Christmas present...in that book I saw the paintings of the wives of Henry the VIII .....I was besotted. It was a catalogue from the National Portrait Gallery of London.

Anonymous French painter.

Eyes and the the softness of the skin in the paintings was exquisite.....often there is a pearl or a dark red ruby to observe..........I was hooked at every glance.

Collecting books since I was eleven years old....I have managed to keep most of them close to me. I spent many years living in England and working in the publishing industry....this allowed me to grow my collection on a very wide scale.

In 1985 I decided to do my Post Graduate in painting at Sydney University.

It was at that time and in that year.....I painted 48 portraits and created 72 drawings.

Royal Portraiture.

The sitters over the centuries ......some as young as five years of age.....look out at us with a sense of the unknown.

Dressed in their royal finery.....the delicate detail of the fabrics and embellishments, tells us of a time where the mercantile trade was fervent.

Silks from the east.....gold lace from Spain and handcrafted buckles on velvet slippers.....sewn by hand.

Historings by Melwitz Folino.

       

A Self Portrait by Tom Alberts....at La Boudoir Dada.

Compilation of portraits to be made into Historings.

I need to like the person I'm drawing or painting.....most of the time when the person is sitting in front of you.....it becomes very spiritual.

I like to stare at paintings for long periods of time.....a certain amount of internal decision making occurs.

It has everything to do with your inner world....and that's why each and every portrait... has its very own soul.

Deceit by Melwitz Folino.

The portrait above was painted knowing that my love for a person was being compromised at every turn......I was flooded with despair and could only appear to imagine a swift and sorrowful end ...I was not far off........it's as I tell it......art imitating life and my life no longer felt like my own.

The subtle powers of the portrait by some one like Kathe Kollwitz  and my most admired artist of all....Adolph Menzel....are beyond painting ...they transport you they sense doom they show you pain you become racked with emotional unease yet you love and get swept into that world and all that that world is showing you.......such is the power and perfection of the portrait.

Armlette by Melwitz Folino.