There are probably as many ways to paint as there are artists, so there is no “right way to paint”. If there was there would never have been a Michelangelo, Van Gogh, Picasso or Hockney. So we don’t want to be prescriptive about the way you produce your art, for us the finished result is largely all that matters. What we do want, is to represent the best in contemporary British portraiture and encourage the practitioners of it, as they explore this captivating and endlessly intriguing subject. To paint a portrait is to consider the human condition and to reflect upon our own existence, it is deeply personal and as varied and exciting as the people we paint and the painters that paint them!
CBPP is a place to showcase some of the best British practitioners of this wonderful field of painting and a place to learn and support one another in what we do. After all, whatever stage we are at, we are all learning. We are mostly professional painters and full membership of the group is by invitation. You don’t have to have exhibited in a prominent show, or have won a prize for portraiture and members are invited purely on the quality of their work and their commitment to portraiture. While striving to avoid exclusivity, we also recognise the value in an aspirational element to being asked to join and currently there is no maximum number of members, so we are aiming to be as democratic as we can be.