“Marcus from Egypt”
40cm x 50cm (16″ x 20″) Oil on W&N canvas texture paper 300gsm.
It had been a while since I painted a black face. Notwithstanding time I loved it as much as the first time. For some reason I find black skin so much richer in color and intensity that it become a constant discovery to portray likeness and depth of expression in one place.
Pure color never ends and thanks to people like Marcus I love painting!!
Currans Hill artist Phil Carrero started as an impressionable 16 year old drawing charcoal portraits through the streets of Buenos Aires. He worked his way up from drawing to painting and begun to sell his works around that time. Coming to Australia in 1973 , at the age of 23, Mr Carrero continued his studies in Art and completed an apprenticeship for four months to get himself better acquainted with portraiture painting. Meanwhile, for almost ten years produced and sold many ship portraits and marine paintings. -After that I begun getting around 12 commissions a year for just portraits. That's the point when he begun to make a living out of painting-, he said. He paints in the Traditional, Realistic style ... English and Italian schools, his portraits can resemble the Grand Manner style of the 19th and 20th centuries in England and later, America. (extracted from "Artist has brush with thieves", Macarthur Advertiser, January 2004)