23/07/2004
Only last month, for instance, she unwittingly provoked a rumpus at the Royal Academy when she submitted her painting of Michael Jackson for the Summer Exhibition along with a note explaining that she thought the troubled singer was innocent of the child abuse charges he faces.
Did she express her love for Michael Jackson in her painting? "I certainly feel a rapport with him and his plight." What inspired you? "I was in the middle of my recent series of North Sea paintings in Suffolk and there were suddenly photographs of Michael Jackson in the papers and all the razzmatazz about him being arrested. I was driven to go into the studio and make some sort of response because I feel that he's innocent even though I've never met the man. The idea that he's innocent until proven guilty seems to have been thrown out of the window."
The picture is divided into two: on the left is Jackson in a white suit, his diffidence accentuated by the fact that he is in three-quarter profile, while on the right his legs are leaping in mid-air. "I feel he is a victim of all this. He had no childhood at all. For me there's no difference between Michael Jackson and the beggar I painted. It's a painting of the situation as I see it. On the left I'm trying to say something about his vulnerability and isolation and on the right about his genius as a performer."
Maggi Hambling's portrait of Michael Jackson goes on display at Marlborough Fine Art's summer show from July 27. Details: 020-7629 5161.
Source: The Guardian
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