National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place, London, WC2H 0HE
Opening Hours: Daily: 10am – 6pm; Open ‘til 9pm on Thursdays and Fridays.
I love people watching, I do it everywhere. The Xhosa people of South Africa have a proverb that runs ‘Ubuntu ungamntu ngabanye abantu’ – people are people through other people. This is true, I think, and it is one of the reasons why I love the National Portrait Gallery. It is a gallery that is full of people. People as seen through the eyes of other people.
My love of people watching stems from disbelief and wonder that there could possibly be so many different people on the earth; that they will be born, live, feel and die and I will not know of their existence nor they of mine. Every person that you see going about their business walks away and carries on. So do a billion others.
But there, in the National Portrait Gallery, some of those others are captured, preserved, celebrated and seen. I love to wander through the halls, through the faces and the stories, imagining each person as a character; not only in their own life but in the lives of those they’ve touched. I remind myself that the portrait, the picture of the person, is how just one person saw them, once.
It is our prerogative then to see them differently, to start the story somewhere else and end up somewhere new. I always start with the eyes; get as close as you can to the portrait and look into their eyes. You see them, sure, but not as they see themselves; not as they were seen that time they were painted; every time they are seen they are seen differently. So are you. Remember they might be looking at you.
Go to the National Portrait Gallery. See other people and see yourself through them.
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