Description
Brogan Bertie’s loose, intuitive portraits capture both the vulnerability and assertiveness of his sitters. In this film, he discusses his art practice, from his early, obsessive love of drawing as a child to winning Portrait Artist of the Year in 2024. He tells us how colour, texture, and form, combined with a deep curiosity about the individuals he paints, help shape the narratives within his portraits.
0:00 “Vulnerability is the point.”
00:16 Introduction
0:30 “A deep, instinctual desire to draw everything that I could see.”
1:49 “Their defensiveness is not a failure of vulnerability. Their defensiveness is who they are. And my job is to capture, or try to capture, who they are.”
4:09 “To do much pre-planning would almost rob spontaneity.”
4:47 “I walked into the open day, and it was filled to the brim with all of these different tools for printmaking, and it smelt like ink.”
6:30 “The simple interest in someone else’s story and in their life is something that has come right through, 10 years later into how I paint people now; there … just has to be deep obsessive interest.”
7:27 “I feel like the process of using oils and wrestling with them … and work with each other in all of those messy, beautiful, off-key ways that human relationships can be messy.”
8:30 “I don't think illustration was my passion. It was a way of formalising drawing. And what I love about drawing is its informality.”
9:52 “It said on the advert no experience needed and no admin required. And I thought, perfect, my dream job!”
10:54 “I really love colour, I love boldness, I love an unusual colour.”
12:00 “I suppose, hunger and confidence and desire to do this. After I'd done that for a year or so, I thought, I want to be out there. I want to be in the world.”
14:16 “Transitioning has had a massive impact on how I am able to interact with the world in general, which translates very linearly to how I am able to paint.”
15:12 “There is the desire, though impossible, to paint everyone I possibly could.”
17:02 “The process of a portrait coming together is quite a beast.”
17:49 “It's not often that we are stared at.”
19:57 “Talking is such an intrinsic part of these sittings.”
21:22 “ I left the pub, went to paint my entire self-portrait, which I submitted on the show, and I think that was a real sliding doors moment.”
23:59 “This really alive thing, this lovely, gloopy, gorgeous stuff that makes all the oil paint very syrupy and lovely. It means you can basically draw with it.”
24:43 “I love it to be as smooth as possible, because I want that sensation of being able to draw the paint moving very easily.”
25:38 “Portraiture is a form of storytelling.”
26:58 “I don't want to enter a self-protective dialogue; I hope people think I'm good at painting.
I'm not trying to prove anything about myself.”
28:55 “There's something quite satisfying and fun about the time limit in forming the energy of the painting.”
29:44 “We do have to stand on our own. I think that works within a portrait.”
31:08 “I created this space because my entire practice is about inviting other people in, and it feels warm, and it feels comfortable.”
32:14 “Sometimes we play music together. Sometimes we're in silence.”
32:55 “The point is not to labour over someone while they have to sit in front of me and watch me doing it, because I think that's not respectful of their time.”
34:32 “The ugly duckling phase of the painting is quite a fun thing to try and navigate, but if something does go really wrong, I think there's no harm in that.”
36:03 “To me, it feels like they're painting portraits of people to answer a question.”
38:03 “Perfectionism robs us of all of the effort. I want to see the effort.”
38:27 Credits
Read our Blog Article: https://www.jacksonsart.com/blog/2026/09/29/artist-insights-brogan-bertie/?utm_campaign=ain_brogan_bertie&utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=organicsocial&utm_content=youtube_social_organic_video_to_blog
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