This painting in working progress has been inspired by the History of Christchurch Park and the Mansion house which is close to where I live.Our House was eventually built on the original grounds of the Holy Trinity Monastery.
The land our house sits on ,was used by monks to grow vegetables.This changed when Henry V111 dissolved all the monasteries and so Edmund Withipoll built Christchurch Mansion in 1548.Our land became part of the rolling landscape and his family's view.
It is interesting,to imagine the incredible back drop or stage to where the the painting is being created,now. In the past I have explored the many family portraits in the Mansion and wanted to paint my own portraits of my family.
I find it exciting to join a time line of Human Ancestry, all be it not my own, with my family contribution.Also every portrait I have ever seen has a slightly all too real grandeur about it.I wanted to explore this component of painting portraiture , to find out whether,my sitters , whilst caught in a physical frame, might remain informal.
After the Withipolls and the Devereux families owned the Mansion, it was purchased by Claude Fonnereau.
He was believed to be from a successful Huguenot silk weaving family.This is personally interesting to me, because my fathers family are Huguenot descendants.
This creative link to now and the past intrigues me.
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