EDINBURGH.- The private world of portrait making is revealed in a beguiling new exhibition opening this spring at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. The Long Look – The Making of a Portrait explores the creative collaboration that grew between Edinburgh-based artists Audrey Grant (b.1964) and Norman McBeath (b.1952), and the award winning crime-writer Val McDermid (b.1955), when Audrey asked Norman and Val to sit for portraits.

Audrey Grant began to draw photographer and printmaker Norman McBeath in charcoal at her studio in the Stockbridge area of Edinburgh in December 2015. Audrey would create a portrait drawing of Norman over many sittings – the process could take weeks, months or even years, because at the end of each sitting Audrey would erase her work. This fascinating long-term aspect of Audrey’s practice allows her to get under the skin of her subject – looking anew with each sitting, seeking to evoke a sense of the sitter’s presence, and constantly creating and destroying what has come before.

Describing this process, Audrey said: “The charcoal, the eraser and the rag enabled this process, allowing me to constantly apply, remove, reapply, find and re-find, while leaving the ghosts of erased images. These, in turn, will give essential weight to the final version of the drawing.”

Audrey asked Norman to photograph the drawing at the end of each session to chart her progress. Norman soon became fascinated by the way Audrey was working, which led him to create photographs of the process as a reflection on his experience of sitting for a portrait – the paint-spattered surfaces of her studio, her charcoal covered hands, the chair on which he sat for hours.

Speaking about the process, Norman said: “I became fascinated by the sheer physicality of Audrey’s drawing: the constant back and forth to the easel, the scrapes, rubs and wipes of the charcoal and cloth on the paper, the sharp snap of a new piece of black willow…From my static position, unable to see anything of the front of the easel, I found myself trying to interpret this information as a way of imagining the progress of the portrait.”

The Long Look features the drawings, photographs and objects that Audrey and Norman produced during sittings, giving us a unique opportunity to explore the art of portraiture, and what it means to really look at another person.

In addition to two portraits of Norman, Audrey also completed two charcoal portraits of the award-winning crime writer Val McDermid. Much like Norman, Val found that the many sittings over a long period inspired her own creative practice. Sessions with Audrey allowed Val time to let her mind roam, exploring thoughts and ideas that might otherwise have been crowded out by her busy life.

Speaking about her experience, Val said: “It’s a gift in my busy life to have two hours where no distraction is permitted. And letting go of the immediate need to deal with any one of the many demands on my time allows my mind to range randomly far and wide. It’s a chance for my subconscious to make itself heard, and the end result is all sorts of sparky creative moments.”

The Long Look gives visitors a unique opportunity to explore the nature and intimacy of portraiture and places you in close proximity to the various and subtle layers of looking and building a dialogue which occur as part of the process of making a portrait, in this case through drawing and photography.

Speaking about the exhibition, Deputy Director & Chief Curator of Portraiture at the National Galleries of Scotland, Imogen Gibbon said: “The Long Look is unlike anything displayed before at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and presents an unmissable opportunity to explore portraiture at its core. The work on display shows portraiture at its most compelling in that it hides nothing and discloses everything."