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Cllr Rebecca Hossack with Derren Brown and his parents Chris and Bob Brown |
‘Enchanted’ art: TV’s Derren Brown conjures familiar faces out of paint
HE’S known for firing a loaded gun at his head on live television, but this week the world’s favourite mind reader took on something many might describe as even more terrifying: a one-man picture show.
On Tuesday Derren Brown, who has been described as anything from a magician and sceptic to the brain behind TV’s “sickest stunt yet” (the Daily Mail on Russian Roulette), gave himself a new label…painter.
His local art gallery, the Rebecca Hossack Gallery in Conway Street, Fitzrovia, was the place he chose to unveil his paintings, which he has privately worked on for more than 20 years.
Among the smiling faces at the show were his parents Chris and Bob, who had travelled up from Croydon and described the evening as a source of pride, and his friend, the West Hampstead broadcaster, Stephen Fry.
Deputy leader of Camden Council Andrew Marshall was also on hand to appreciate the art, having been invited by Conservative councillor Hossack, who represents the Bloomsbury ward.
Actors Jack Nicholson, Johnny Depp and Anthony Hopkins are among the famous faces on display in the show, now on exhibition at Cllr Hossack’s other gallery in Charlotte Street.
“It started as an obvious choice,” Mr Brown, 38, said of choosing celebrities as his subjects. “It was either teachers or famous people, and then it became about painting people I found interesting,” he added.
The paintings take on the appearance of a street caricature and there is “something cheap and tawdry at [their] heart”, he said.
“Drawing was my first love and then I became a hypnotist. I’ve always kept the two separate. I just draw what I see. It comes with a love of faces and reading people – not mind reading. What people give away – a lot of that is in the face.”
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