People

People is a compendium of pencil portraits by Marcus Oakley of his good friends, close family members and some interesting strangers. The drawings are based on archive of two years worth of photographs taken in public and private – from visits to friends houses or on rural picnicking excursions, bicycling jaunts and nights out at gigs or down the pub.

These informal and impromptu images add up to a meandering visual essay on the subject of portraiture. While the images on the pages of People work as likenesses and evocations of the character and moods of their sitters; these portraits are filtered through the artists personal and distinctive graphic style. Cumulatively, while People presents us with a cavalcade of individuals, each persons distinctive features and style are synthesised into a quirky visual grammar.