Art: 10-year mission to paint everyone in St Davids

The sitters come through various channels - sometimes Grahame asks people in shops

Ten years ago, artist Grahame Hurd-Wood set himself a huge challenge.

He resolved to paint an individual portrait of every resident of the city he lives in.

Fortunately for him that city is St Davids in Pembrokeshire, the smallest in the UK, with about 1,800 residents.

But it is still an enormous task.

A decade on from his decision, Grahame is 1,000 portraits in, and the aptly titled City of Portraits project, rather than getting smaller, is increasing as the scope of his ambition broadens.

He had already assembled about 100 portraits of people he knew a decade ago, when a personal tragedy intervened to give life to the epic journey he is undertaking.

The portrait of Debbie, completed after her death, was part of Grahame's motivation to start City of Portraits

A good friend and fellow artist who had cancer asked him to paint her, not knowing that the portrait would end up being completed after her death.

Grahame explained: "I met this lovely girl called Debbie more than 10 years ago.

"When she realised she had cancer, she said 'oh you have to do a portrait'.

"She didn't think that was the end. So I did a whole series of drawings and things and the portrait unfortunately became a posthumous one.

Grahame has displayed the portraits as large composite pictures

"One of her legacies for me was actually to carry on with the portraits as something to really focus on.

"The whole story starts off with [her]. Although I'd been doing some portraits before, the actual project, the City of Portraits, came into fruition around about the time she died."

At the time Grahame thought the work would take him about five to 10 years.

But now he says the project, an homage to his adopted home town, will keep going.

The city takes its name from St Davids Cathedral, where Grahame hopes to project the artworks onto its walls

Originally from Gosport in Hampshire and partly raised in Northern Ireland he moved to the diminutive city after finishing studying art at Camberwell School of Art and the Royal Academy in London.

He was "a little bit lost" at this point and although he had only been to St Davids once, he thought he would come down for one summer in the 1980s.

"So I did, and I sort of settled down here. I bought a house and that was the start of my venture in St Davids basically," he explained.

Grahame Hurd-Wood began the City of Portraits project in earnest 10 years ago

What makes it more remarkable is City of Portraits is a labour of love which is a side project to Grahame's main work.

He said: "I'm concentrating on other projects as well, which is based on painting landscapes around here, seascapes, and they are quite big so everything's quite time consuming.

"When I'm doing the little portraits, it's about the essence of the character.

"It's about the ephemeral contact with somebody, and each portrait has a little story, whether it be somebody talking about their life, or talking about something which is amusing, but it's a particular account of each character.

"They're quite intense, but beautifully intense."

His subjects arrive in different ways. Some is through word of mouth, sometimes are as simple as approaching people at the shops and asking if they would like to sit for a portrait.

"Invariably people say yes. I've only had one or two who've said no," he explained.

"It accumulates that way."

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Having started with just a focus on St Davids, Grahame is now expanding his horizons.

"The whole project is evolving. I've actually brought in the peninsula around St Davids. It's very much part of the community.

Grahame was asked to paint the under-11s rugby team for the project, with some of their portraits displayed on this board

"So I'm doing people who are involved in St Davids, who I know, people who say 'well I live in Trefin, I live in Porthgain, do I count?'"

Now that he has assembled about 1,000 portraits - "enough to show people I am dedicated" - he is in discussions with St Davids Cathedral about hosting a dual exhibition of the work there within in the next year.

"I've been talking to the cathedral having an idea about projecting them on to the tower of the cathedral," he said.

"There's been a lot of very positive response about that as well. I'll probably co-ordinate it with having a show of the portraits either in the cathedral - there's a place where they have exhibitions - or maybe having them in the city council which has a very big exhibition space."

His oldest subject, now 100, was in her 90s when painted, and although Grahame has mostly focused on adults, he also painted the city's under-11s rugby team as part of the project.

Portrait of Klaus, who spoke movingly about his experience of fleeing the Nazis during his sitting

Not everyone talks about themselves while being painted, but one sitter, Klaus, has stayed with him across the years.

"There was this character who had been a refugee in the war, and he talked about his past, and talked about how he had to leave Germany. It was a very moving story, and it empowered me," he said.

"I think this particular portrait took me eight hours and he talked gently through the whole eight hours.

"He was probably 83 at the time, and to listen to stories like that it made me think of what other people have been through in the past. It made me feel humble. When I left I was very emotional."

Although Grahame had already lived in St Davids for a long time, undertaking the project has brought him closer to his adopted home.

"Each portrait has made me feel part of the community," he said.

"One thing this elderly lady said to me when she came to sit for me. She said, we're really proud of you bach (dear), and that really meant a lot to me."

There is one face still missing from the community, that of Grahame himself. He is hoping to get another artist to paint him as part of it.

He does not see any end to the project.

"I'm never going to retire. It's a passion that will hopefully never leave me."

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