Viral Portraits

Viral Portraits consists of 102 individual drypoint etchings which I began in March 2020 when the Covid 19 lockdown meant UK citizens could only leave their houses for one hour a day. In response, I asked people to send me photographs of themselves. This was facilitated by using social media virally, and I very quickly began to receive submissions from across the world. I decided to produce one portrait to mark each of the 102 days I could only work from home.

Produced in my home studio under these restrictions, each portrait was made using only tools that I could source inside my house. As well as a simple drypoint scribe this included electric drills, nails, metal combs, picks, and more.

Each work was created with two plates - one of the person, the other the virus. The plates were contaminated, altered and ‘infected’ with carborundum applied fast and expressively - sometimes they were dipped in household bleach, drain cleaner or just left outside to be exposed to the elements. All were defaced with deliberately random markings made by the limited equipment I had at hand.

Some portraits were created in just an hour or so. Others took a couple of days. I had to fit the project around the daily pressures of domestic life under the shadow of Covid. Each work reflects the experience of lockdown on that specific day, that particular hour. As a result, some seem oppressive, others hopeful, angry, and happy. Some portraits were accurate reflections of the individual, others far more expressionistic. When all are placed side by side, I hope they express this year - and my response to it as an artist.

Over five hundred people signed up and shared their experiences of C19 via my Viral Portraits Facebook group. In doing so, they made the project an act of mass resistance against the disease and its impact on our lives. Below are just a few pieces that make up the total work - which is designed to be shown as a singular piece.

If you are interested in exhibiting this work, then please contact me at: malcolm@malcolmduffin.art / 0774 891 7201