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| Naomi in the frame as her successor helps unveil official portrait - Belfast Telegraph |
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| Lord Mayor Portrait |
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| Portrait of the MP as a city mayor - The Irish News |
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| Lord Mayor Portrait |
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| Former Lord Mayor Naomi Long and artist Nicola Russell - Newsletter |
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| Lord Mayor portrait |
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| Portrait of the Lord Mayor in a blue coat and Sainsbury's earrings - Belfast Telegraph 28th April 2010 |
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Arriving at Belfast City Hall of a wet and windy weekday morning, it's no surprise to see the Lord Mayor in conversation with artist Nicola Russell, while round her flows excited school crocodile of six-year-olds newly aware of the history of this August building, but not quite sure of the place this blue-jacketed youngish woman holds in the timeline.
It is, as the Lord Mayor Naomi Long says, just what she wanted when appointed to the post in June 2009, "a City Hall open to all".
After Naomi's meeting with the woman who is going to immortalise her in a painting which will be added to the row of predominantly male portraits - from sir Daniel Dixon to Tom Hartley - in the marble corridor of fame, she has to discuss an important anti-poverty initiative with some foreign politicians.
Although meeting President Obama, whose name she happily drops while reminiscing about an encounter during her St Patrick's Day trip to Washington, is the sort of event Naomi Long takes in her stride, posing for the official portrait is more daunting.
"I'm not really comfortable with the idea of sitting for a painting, so Nicola is going to follow me about with a camera. This image isn't just about me but about everybody who works at City Hall."
As Naomi explains later, she is concerned this should not be "a vanity project". You can see where she's coming from. The history of the official portrait, from Holbein's flattering painted manifestos of Henry VIII to the period photographs of the Queen Mother (very Winterhalter in a black and white 1969 snap) that adorn the Mayor's parlour, is one of vanity and imposing identity.
As critic Andrew Graham-Dixon put it: "The portrait traditionally sets out to place and define its subjects, to indicate wealth, occupation, social standing."
Yet Naomi, true to her own style, will probably be sporting some Sainsbury's earrings, "costing around £5 - which says something about me".
The traditional accoutrements of the Lord Mayor's role won't occupy centre stage in this official portrait, although Naomi will wear the symbolic chain of office, which literally weighs a stone and displays symbols of the four provinces.
Although there are some fine formal paintings of mayors, this mayor feels it is not her style. She says: "This portrait won't be very traditional: that's not how I've done the job and wouldn't reflect the year.
"What I like about the previous portraits is that they've mostly captured the person but I'll leave it to the artist to reflect me."
Artist Nicola initially made her name with seductive flower paintings and masterly equine portraits but has latterly become a noted political portrait painter in the Tim Yeo mould. She reveals that her favourite portraits are by old masters: "I love Goya's portrait of his mistress Antonia Zarate in the National Gallery, Dublin, because it glows as if there's a light bulb behind the canvas."
Her 1999 evocation of Mo Mowlam is improbably glamorous, but captures the sheer oomph pf the province's most extrovert Minister of State. Nicola's more recent study of Baroness May Blood exactly conveys the humour behind her slightly austere images. As Nicola recalls, that particular commission was made easier because she knew her subject: "I'd known May for ages, although I'm not a close friend, but apparently she was pleased with the result, which was also liked by her family."
You don't have to like your subject to produce a good likeness, although Naomi and Nicola seem to have clicked on the basis of mutual respect.
Cllr Naomi Long, deputy leader of the Alliance Party, is only the second female Lord Mayor in Belfast's history.
The first, Mayor Grace Bannister (1981-2), an old-school Ulster Unionist, looks formidable in her portrait.
A certain informality is likely to characterise Nicola's painting. The artistic method is not standard, involving several sittings and the artist uncovering the picture by face-to-face observation. Nicola says she will go home, look at the "hundreds of photos I'll have taken" in her studio, and get to work. "I may do a sort of sketch to work out Naomi's position. The painting will be in oils and will take a couple of months to complete." It will also be worth quite a few thousand pounds.
Other examples of Nicola Russell's work, such as the horse picture she presented to the Queen in 1998 ("pretty, petite and she doesn't look up to you so you have to move down to her level"), fetch upwards of £10,000.
Nicola is fired up about recording a female achievement: "It is important that a woman is up there among all the men. How will I convey the feminist point? Well, there won't be any bra burning," she laughs. "But the painting itself will be the first thing you see in that corridor for a year, and that's a statement in itself."
The form, as in Nicola's other work, will be traditional and wont feature the much-missed Belfast Eye in the background, although Naomi liked having it around.
When Hillary Clinton saw it, she said every nice civic building should have its ferris wheel. But if we included it, it would date the painting."
Nicola's method, which involves stalking the mayor for a while, produces a context of the persona behind the title. She was impressed by going to a lively council meeting led by Naomi. "It gave you a sense of the person."
In our era, political style seems to have become almost as important as policies. But Naomi definitely does not belong to the style over substance school of politics.
Discussing the chief contenders for the job of British Prime Minister and the Clegg factory, she observes: "We've got a real battle between style and substance there. If substance is boiled down, it can be intimidating but if a politician's all style people feel he's insincere, has no depth."
Retail therapy isn't a phrase in a Long vocabulary. She doesn't have anybody to pick out clothes for her. "No, and I'm not a shop person. I get my clothes, jewellery and food at the supermarket. I haven't decided, but will probably wear my blue coat."
Like Dorian Gray's portrait, Naomi Long's image will remain vivid and strong reminded of what her and our city - "it's been a great year for Belfast, with the City Hall reopening, but we can do more" - felt like in 2009-2010. |
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