Johnny Yeo
Photographer David Loftus examines the work of one of Britain’s most accomplished portrait artists.
Johnny yeo is possibly the best and most sought after portraitist working in Britain today. Charming, well educated, well loved and well connected, the young Yeo is totally self taught and is a master craftsman of his art.
In 2001, Johnny was commissioned by the House of Commons to paint the three party leaders, and future sitters included Nicole Kidman, the late Dennis Hopper, who described his work as ‘timeless and beautiful’, Tony Blair, Grayson Perry, Stephen Fry and Minnie Driver. Always a rule breaker, in 2002 his photorealist portraits of Theo Fennell were pulled from American magazines for their graphic nudity. Johnny is currently working on a large retrospective for the National portrait gallery, and his studio is currently dominated by a vast life size portrait of Damian Hirst, dressed in his Formaldehyde resistant work clothes and clutching a gas mask, and a stunning portrait of Kevin Spacey as Richard the Third. Painted sketches of Kidman, Hirst, Spacey and Hopper adorn the walls, all stunning, as well as detailed paintings of cosmetic surgery patients with titles like ‘Reduction Rhinoplasty’ and ‘Lower Lid Blepharoplasty.’ For these, Johnny sat through hours of cosmetic surgery, and the finished paintings are almost Michelangelo-like in their quiet beauty. It was his ‘unauthorized’ portrait of President Bush during Johnny’s self named ‘blue period’ which brought him global notoriety. When Bush decided to cancel a previously commissioned sitting with Johnny, he decided to create a striking image of the the former president from ‘bush’.. the intimate cuttings from pornographic magazines. The portrait was so successful that further porn collages followed, to much critical acclaim, and last year several were exhibited in Los Angeles in an exhibition titled ‘Porn in the USA’. The subversive ‘Bush’ collage was accompanied by collages of Tiger Woods, Paris Hilton, Sarah Palin and Hugh Hefner.
