For my art project I have been exploring contemporary legend and I wanted to start off with something quite local and down to earth. I had a think about legendary characters within my county who I had heard about through friends and the bearded lady of Guildford was the first to come to mind. Since I had only encountered her once walking up the Guilford high-street once when I was out with my parents I thought that this might be a good opportunity to find out more about her through the internet. Luckily I was able to find a fair amount of images online of her, some of which I illustrated in my sketchbook.
These were mainly pencil drawings with the accompaniment of watercolour. I was going for a similar style to the South African artist Marlene Dumas who recently had an exhibition on at the Tate modern which visited. I am attracted by the half real, half surreal atmosphere she creates in her portraits with often quite cloudy colours and tones.
Meanwhile online I have found an interesting blog on the bearded lady (aka Brenda). It’s written by ex-prisoner, book writer and documentary maker Shaun Attwood who talks his experience on befriending her. I would recommend having a read:
http://jonsjailjournal.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/bearded-lady-of-guildford-i-recently_02.html
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