“WHEN IS NOW?” A human project
I started this archive at the end of 2019.
A new decade, and global events were feeling very precarious – how did we get to this point, and how would everything play out over the next 10 years?
What role do we, as individuals, play in all these things – past, present and future?
I am painting portraits and recording conversations with a wide range of sitters,
all of whom have some involvement in the events of “Now”.
Who are they? What are they doing? How do they see the future?
These intimate conversations won’t be revealed in full until 2030,
but please explore all the fascinating people I have talked to below.
Drawing our present, our ‘now’, and watching it become our past.
Portraits
July 2022-December 2022
January 2022-June 2022
July 2021-December 2021
January 2021-June 2021
August 2020-December 2020
November 2019 (start) – July 2020
About “WHEN IS NOW?”
Drawing someone is a very intimate and contemplative process, both for the sitter and for the artist. Quiet conversation during the drawing process can illuminate so much more about the sitter than just a drawing ever can.
As the project goes on, the portraits and conversations from the early stages will already be part of the past.
I want this to document, in the best sense of the word, the realities of individuals, their joys and their concerns, big and small. The documentation will evolve with time. I will endeavour to choose a wide range of sitters, some known to me, and some not, all with an interesting perspective on their “now”. Each person’s testimony will be forever tied to their painted portraits, to be fully shared as a body of work in 2030. Woven into the fabric of the project are little notes recording the events at that particular time, for context.
So much has happened since I began this archive. Alongside the twists and turns of politics, there are things which could never have been foreseen, such as April 2020 – Coronavirus, February 2022 – Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Please look back through the posts to see previous stories.
Sarah Holliday RWS 