{"id":18739,"date":"2013-11-11T14:11:23","date_gmt":"2013-11-11T14:11:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/?p=18739"},"modified":"2015-10-07T10:45:08","modified_gmt":"2015-10-07T10:45:08","slug":"cardiff-character-nathan-wyburn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/culture\/cardiff-character-nathan-wyburn","title":{"rendered":"Cardiff character: Nathan Wyburn"},"content":{"rendered":"

When an artist paints a portrait usually they simply create an image, but Cardiff-based artist Nathan Wyburn involves his subject\u2019s whole persona by choosing materials and techniques related to their best-known qualities.<\/p>\n

\"CC_CULTURE_SE_BIG\"<\/a>

In his studio, Wyburn recalls the headache he got from staring at his tongue for so long<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0Though he is known for his use of non-traditional materials, from marmite to fake tan, his most recent portrait was of Miley Cyrus and painted with his tongue, inspired by Cyrus\u2019s own inability to keep her tongue in her mouth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How it began<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 24-year-old is composed, the rain hasn\u2019t even affected his curly hair, and he doesn\u2019t hesitate when asked to explain how he got into art, \u201cIt\u2019s always been portraits for me like faces sort of fascinate me, how basically as soon as you get someones eyes right I think you can tell exactly who they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

While people can be identified from only their eyes, they can also be identified through what stereotypically defines them, and this is what Wyburn demonstrates through his art.<\/p>\n

What initially brought Wyburn into the public eye was his marmite on toast portrait of Simon Cowell. Already bored with traditional materials, the idea to use marmite instantly came to him after reading an article about how you either \u2018love or hate\u2019 Simon Cowell.<\/p>\n

You might think he was just messing around with his breakfast but he has since progressed into more controversial territory; His 10-foot tall portrait of Rupert Murdoch, made up of six thousand photographs of phone hacking victims, made it onto the front page of the Guardian.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Where he is now<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0His studio is the not the mess you\u2019d expect from someone who paints with their tongue. Miley Cyrus\u2019s portrait is still on the wall where he painted it, but what you couldn\u2019t see in the video is the picture he was copying and it\u2019s astounding how exactly alike they are.<\/p>\n

[youtube]http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_9tmO3RqMd8[\/youtube]<\/p>\n

\u00a0He\u00a0assures me that it took longer than the youtube video gave away but even with a break every ten minutes (for a tongue rinse) he is undoubtedly talented, \u201cThis is sort of where I have an odd understanding of portraits anyway and I look at an image and it\u2019s almost like a photographic memory, it\u2019s difficult to explain.\u201d<\/p>\n

He is confident; not arrogantly so, but it\u2019s easy to tell he has a strong belief in what he does as he explains the way his portraits work, \u201cThey take things like stereotypes, what they [the celebrity] are best known for, then basically say \u2018This is all that you are now, you\u2019re almost like a commodity\u2019.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a strong statement to make and the possibilities for materials seem endless. He has been commissioned to make a portrait out of human hair for Movember, his excitement is obvious as his eyes light up while he tells me, \u201cThere is literally no limit to what I\u2019ll try, whether it\u2019ll work is a different thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though he insists, \u201cI never give anything away,\u201d laughing as he apologises, \u201csorry!\u201d he does say that he is planning on doing a series of portraits of his favourite artists. The two he mentions specifically, Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, are most known for their portrayals of death and sex respectively, which he hints may result in something, \u201cQuite different from the playful stuff that I\u2019ve done before.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leaving the normal tools behind, his latest painting was done with his tongue<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[101,148,1094,697,3124,2864,3120,2192,3122,3123,3121],"yoast_head":"\nCardiff character: Nathan Wyburn - alt.cardiff<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/culture\/cardiff-character-nathan-wyburn\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cardiff character: Nathan Wyburn - alt.cardiff\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Leaving the normal tools behind, his latest painting was done with his tongue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/culture\/cardiff-character-nathan-wyburn\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"alt.cardiff\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-11-11T14:11:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-10-07T10:45:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/\",\"name\":\"alt.cardiff\",\"description\":\"If it\\u2019s offbeat and in Cardiff then it\\u2019s online here.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/culture\/cardiff-character-nathan-wyburn#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/photo-2-480x312.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/culture\/cardiff-character-nathan-wyburn#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/culture\/cardiff-character-nathan-wyburn\",\"name\":\"Cardiff character: Nathan Wyburn - alt.cardiff\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/culture\/cardiff-character-nathan-wyburn#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-11-11T14:11:23+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-10-07T10:45:08+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/#\/schema\/person\/34d0ea86f9ec8130e4085bb0592503c0\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/culture\/cardiff-character-nathan-wyburn\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/#\/schema\/person\/34d0ea86f9ec8130e4085bb0592503c0\",\"name\":\"altcardiff\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/251d18ae391aa476d090c1eb0e8b3365?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"altcardiff\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18739"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18739"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19295,"href":"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18739\/revisions\/19295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}