North East Bylines was able to interview human rights painter Paul Piercy. Piercy shared his backstory and motives for painting, and we compiled his responses here.
What is your background/back story?
“I started painting when I was six years old, in 1945, when the Second World War had just ended and it was safe for me to go with my mother and do sketching and drawing of farms, cattle, farmhouses…”
“This was in Kent, where in the skies the Battle of Britain had taken place. My mother was a very good water-colourist and I learned from her about painting. I also had an uncle who was very good at explaining and demonstrating perspective. However, when I was ten, I had my last Art lesson!”
“I left school without taking exams and for a while led a Bohemian lifestyle in Chelsea. That led me to sharing digs with an actor from Ireland, who introduced me to the Royal Court Theatre. From that I went to drama school and then joined a theatre company in London founded by two of Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop actors. I was in experimental theatre, working sometimes with great directors like Peter Brook. With Peter Hall and Georg Solti at the Royal Opera House and with great singers such as Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti. And the brilliant comedians Morecambe and Wise in Pantomime.”
“It was a creative and formative part of my life”.
“I was on the stage for some ten years but gave it up as I had a wife and four children to support and a regular income became important.”
Picking up painting again
“Fast forward to 1968 and I tried my hand at painting, with portraits of my then two-year-old son. All my paintings had a black background as I liked the process of bringing light into darkness.”
“Then fast forward to 1997 when I took up painting full time. I had a studio in my house in Bristol. I was not married at this time and turned out hundreds of paintings. Some are very experimental! I never wanted to make any money and still don’t. I prefer freedom of choice and total freedom of expression and the freedom to make mistakes.”
“Now in 2009 I learned about Liu Xiaobo who was the Nobel Peace Prize winner that year. It was the first time I had ever heard of him. His is a portrait I’d really like to paint, I thought. However, he was in prison, so I decided to paint his face entirely in thick black paint, as an experiment, and paint his story in full colour. It had the approval of some friends so I made the decision to begin an exhibition project (The Black Portraits) based on my newly formed interest and discovery of human rights worldwide. I joined Amnesty UK Bristol and they along with many international human rights organisations were a great help in my research.”
Human rights painter
“Now married with a son, I moved to the North East. I had my first full-sized exhibition of The Black Portraits at the MEM in Wallsend. It was interesting to learn about the internal and sometimes external political problems of putting exhibitions on, both then and now!”
“Some of the subjects that I had painted got their freedom which meant I could now paint their actual portraits so I contacted them and they agreed to sit. I travelled to various countries to do this including India, Cuba and Buffalo NY and the threat of my canvases being confiscated was a constant worry. In 2016 I had a three month exhibition of The Black Portraits at the Discovery Museum.”
“I have changed the name to ‘Voices for Truth Portraits’.”
“It is perhaps worth noting a couple of things about these paintings. Firstly, the style I use is one of illustration because my intention is to inform the viewer rather than demonstrate art. Secondly the colours of paint and the shapes they make catch the eye, light up the right hemisphere in the brain and lead to further examination by the left hemisphere of what is in the painting. It is up to a person’s individuality whether they see the paintings and then to take an interest in the stories, which are sometimes very, very sad, about the inhumanity that exists and the suffering and pain some are willing to endure in the endeavour to stay true to themselves and to reveal the truth that they see around them.”
What do the paintings do?
“My particular desire and purpose is that, unlike with the transience of news or social media, people can have access to the lives and stories of the twenty human rights champions that are portrayed, indefinitely. Paintings have a certain permanence about them so these noble people will be remembered and commemorated and celebrated for generations to come. I see Voices For Truth Portraits as an historical document of the first quarter of this century.”
Can you tell me about successes?
“At one exhibition somebody came up to me from Rwanda as the painting was about the genocide in Rwanda and he thanked me sincerely for showing the painting to the public, so people could learn about the stories from Rwanda. I was very pleased that he liked this story being shown in public. Another day two people from Russia and Kyrgyzstan who happened to be in York came to the exhibition on the recommendation of my colleague Richard Kotter and they were so taken by the painting I had done of Azimzhan Askarov. They told me they knew his story and one of them knew his solicitor. Also the Russian one was with Amnesty International in Russia. It was arranged for them to give a talk at the exhibition. They spoke of the politics, about corruption that Askarov was exposing, the situation in his country and how he was imprisoned.”
Can you tell me about your plans for the future?
“My plans at the moment, which I’m currently researching, are to get the book on the Voices For Truth Portraits project to the publishers by the deadline set. It is an academic book, called Recording, Remembering, Celebrating Twenty Human Rights Champions from around the World: Impact, Stories and Artwork, is by myself and Richard Kotter and published by Ethics Press International. It will be available in universities and libraries around the world thus cementing the original purpose of this project. It is available now for advance purchase at book shops and online. It will take me to the end of this year, then maybe some more exhibitions.”
“Generally in answer to this question it is important to say that what one plans for today may be wrong for tomorrow. There is always, as Rosalind puts it in C S Pellard’s novel The Voices of Rosalind, ‘the courageous freedom’ – The Freedom to Change One’s Mind.”
What other initiatives are you involved in and which other organisations do you work with?
“I work entirely alone as an individual without Arts Council support, completely unfunded which means I can decide who I want to paint and how I want to paint them. I don’t have to tick any boxes! I have been assisted in this work, in my research, by about a dozen human rights organisations, including Amnesty International.”
What would be your vision of a better future for people in the North East and the country and the world as a whole?
“Since I have lived in Newcastle, I have loved the friendliness and warmth of people, which I didn’t find in other cities I have lived in. My wish is that humankind does not continue at the rate it is, destroying biodiversity. This applies to Newcastle as much as in the rest of the world.”
Is there anything else you would like to add?
“I do hope, with regards to the current great news from Newcastle, that officials and councillors and MPs do not use self-censorship to ignore or disregard the fact that Newcastle is host to two economies; namely China and Saudi Arabia that the city believes it needs to survive economically. I hope that people like officials and councillors and MPs in this city speak up loud and clear about what is true about those countries. By not doing so they are up against Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states everyone has the right to freedom of expression and opinion. No censorship means no self-censorship. The Truth.”
For more information about Paul Piercy and his work please see:
Paul Piercy’s own website here.
Voices for Truth Portraits here.
His Black Portraits website here.
His EamonnKeane works here.
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