North East artist's 'nose-pickers' are the pick of the bunch for national exhibition
There is something different about artist Colin Cameron’s work, but, says Tony Henderson, you can’t quite put your finger on it
In terms of subject matter, a painting by university lecturer Dr Colin Cameron will be the pick of the bunch in a London exhibition.
Colin’s artistic speciality across around 200 of his works is portraying people in a wide variety of poses and locations picking their noses.
He won recognition when two of his paintings were accepted for display in the Royal Academy’s 2021 Summer Exhibition. Both sold quickly.
Now another picking picture by Colin, from Whitley Bay, showing participants passing the time while waiting for a bus is part of a new exhibition at top auction house Christie’s in London.
My characters are slightly ridiculous and a bit grotesque – a bit like most people in real life.
Dr Colin Cameron
Colin is an assistant professor in Northumbria University’s School of Communities and Education. The study of disability is one of his areas of expertise.
He says: “The paintings challenge the notions of beauty and normalcy, with people striving to be respectable but being embarrassed when caught out.”
Colin’s painting is titled Waiting for the No. 69 bus to Hell via Normalcy.
“Being ‘normal’ leaves people feeling both comfortable and uncomfortable,” he continues. “They sense there must be something better, yet for the sake of what they already have, they are reluctant to rock the boat.
“People may feel an underlying horror that their lives will amount to nothing, but in the meantime, they continue to watch rubbish TV or fiddle with their mobiles.
“When I went to the Royal Academy to view the Summer Exhibition, I sat for a while on a bench near my paintings and it was funny to see people coming along all serious and then to watch them stop and look and start laughing.
“My characters are slightly ridiculous and a bit grotesque – a bit like most people in real life.
“Many of my paintings are based on old black and white photographs I buy from a stall at the weekend Tynemouth Station market.
“There are hundreds of old photos here, jumbled together, having been endlessly fingered and thumbed by rummaging strangers – discarded photos collected from clearances of people’s houses.
“These photos will have once been pored over. Now they are forgotten.”
Nose-picking subjects have also included Boris Johnson, Putin and Sam Fender. Colin sold prints of his Putin work at Tynemouth Station market to raise funds to help Ukrainian refugees.
The Christie’s national exhibition, called Shelter, which runs until January 22, is being staged by Outside In, which is an organisation of “outsider artists” – people who, for reasons relating to mental health, disability, or other issues, have been excluded from or faced barriers to mainstream art opportunities.
This captures somehting really interesting about how humor exposes conformity. The nose-picking motif works because it takes those forgotton market photos of people trying to look respectable and shows what happens underneath the performance of normalcy. I worked in a museum once cataloging old donated photos, and the disconnect between posed propriety and everyday humanity is absolutley real.