Colin Davidson

Spear's Review

‘Making a good painting of a human head is hard enough. But a good painting of a human head that has to look like the person you’re painting is infinitely more complicated,’ Colin Davidson told Spear’s. ‘That’s part of the thrill and the buzz of getting a painting right.’

Davidson is a portraitist to the stars, with commissions from the late Queen Elizabeth II, Angela Merkel and A-list celebrities. The Belfast-born art aficionado was originally a designer who owned a successful design company, but he quit in 1991 to pursue painting full time. In 2013, he received a call from ‘an American client’ whom he initially declined to work with. Turns out, the client was Brad Pitt, and after a second enquiry, Davidson accepted the commission.

But Davidson says no amount of celebrity or royalty contact shaped him the way his Silent Testimony paintings did; the collection of 18 portraits depict people either bereaved or injured during the Troubles.