Michael Snape Paul Hopmeier and Ron Robertson-Swann

Paul Hopmeier and Ron Robertson-Swann are both sculptors Michael Snape has known since he was a student at the National Art School in 1971. Snape too is predominantly a sculptor.

Last year he had a seven-panel portrait of his art dealer Stephen Mori in the Archibald. “I liked the wide scan of it,” says Snape. “Various glimpses, distances and attitudes make up the whole portrait. With Stephen though, I felt there were too many heads of the same person so I decided this time to do a group portrait.” Initially Snape had planned to include up to six sculptors. “Paul and Ron, however, were the only survivors of the battle that took place on the canvas.”

Snape wanted to reflect a sculptor’s way of thinking, to create a work which “you almost have to physically enter to see,” says Snape. “I wanted to build the figures into the space rather than have them occupy it. Here, I am a sculptor though instead of clay or steel my tools are paint and lots of lateral space.

“The space the figures occupy, while universally grey, is clearly divided and the remains of other figures in the picture remodel it. Paul and Ron are not necessarily looking across the space at each other, or if they are, the space has time folded through it.

“Painting portraits is not as dry a process as these descriptions imply,” says Snape. “I have known Paul and Ron so long now that I do not need to look at them to conjure them, or at least my version of them. As professional and social acquaintances there has been much experience to draw from. I have attempted to borrow from these experiences to add to my more formal aims.”