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Jamie Oliver is the master of “bashing together” a quick “pukka” supper in front of his TV audience. His old friend, the leading portraitist Jonathan Yeo, produces his acclaimed works of celebrities and politicians over hours of sittings.
This weekend they unveiled the fruits of a new “slow technology” designed by Yeo to provide a unique demonstration of the long art of painting a likeness.
The chef is at the centre of Yeo’s groundbreaking immersive project to allow the public to join them during the private sittings held this summer. The portrait, which was unveiled to the public and to Oliver himself on Saturday, is the result of hours of virtual painting sessions carried out on FaceTime. It was a process which, from this weekend, can also be studied for free through a new 3D app.
“Jamie was sometimes reflective and sometimes more of his twinkly self, and so I show a bit of both in the picture,” Yeo told the Observer. “He had not seen the painting until this weekend. He glimpsed a little at the start, but then we decided it would be more interesting for him to wait.”
Oliver, 45, sat for the portrait from the 16th-century home in Finchingfield, Essex, he shares with his wife Jools and their children. This meant Yeo had to ask a man who is most famous for his speedy approach to creativity to sit completely still.
“I did notice that when the conversation got particularly lively, the painting got noticeably worse,” the artist admitted. “Perhaps that always happens, but I had the opportunity to see it clearly this time.”
Yeo, who developed a virtual 3D printing sculpture tool in 2018 for the Royal Academy of Art, has always been interested in new technology and now, in collaboration with specialists at his studio in Chelsea, west London, he has created an immersive version of his sittings with Oliver that can be downloaded for free from the App Store and Google Play. Studio App offers virtual visitors a fly-on-the-wall remote experience.
“I had the idea because people are always asking to come to the studio and watch me work. It’s usually something that I try to swerve,” said Yeo.
“The FaceTime portrait and the app are an opportunity to share what I do. I wondered whether to film it in real time or to edit it down to the most interesting moments. But I wanted a fair impression of every stage, so in the end we only did a little editing. That gave my sitter a chance to relax. But at the same time I’m not hiding the things I got wrong.”
his sittings with Jamie Oliver. Photograph: Courtesy of Jonathan Yeo
This spring, Yeo, 49, who has previously painted Sir David Attenborough, Tony Blair, Malala Yousafzai and Nicole Kidman, painted a series of other friends on FaceTime. Ahead of Oliver in the sitter’s chair were actor and director Dexter Fletcher, presenter Fearne Cotton, and the particle physicist Brian Cox. “Already knowing them was key,” said Yeo. “That was more important than the fact they are all used to being on camera.”
Yeo said his greatest challenge during lockdown was to find a better way to share his working process with the outside world. “Students often ask and I’m not always as helpful as I’d like,” he said. “This way they can really look around. It is not just virtual reality, it is fully immersive and we have built in game technology so that we can add more to the content.”
Working with the games programmer Vitaliy Tyzhnevyy, who joined Yeo’s team from a course at Goldsmiths college of art, and his studio manager, Ruben Cooke, he built the virtual experience from scratch.
“Other artists should embrace this kind of work,” said Yeo. “The barriers are not as high as people think. In 10 years we will look back and be amazed at how limited we were. The combination of VR, art, film, AI and the special effects world are going to make a huge leap together. And with this kind of experience it is even more relevant to people in a pandemic.”
Yet Yeo is looking forward to returning to simple painting. “That is really what I love the most. I rarely do commissioned work now. Although I do enjoy making portraits, I want the freedom to do different things and not feel I have to deliver to a deadline. I suppose every artist wants that.”
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