JAMES Bland

We were settling down to the second half of the interview when it happened. James Bland had just given a guided tour of his recent exhibition at Gallery 286 – a contemporary art space in the front room and basement of a private, five-storey Kensington townhouse - and we had retired to the garden to talk some more over a pot of coffee and bask in the last of the late afternoon sunshine. He’d been a genial host up until that point, answering questions eloquently and often after long pauses as he gathered his thoughts over how best to explain techniques and processes that otherwise come instinctively to him. Then he popped the question.

“You don’t mind, do you?”

James had produced an A5 sketchbook and pencil from his bag and indicated he was about, this is a first. “I get very nervous under scrutiny,” he explains. “I had a photographer come around recently [to take his portrait] and the only way I could get through it was to paint him. He was under scrutiny then and it sort of made us even.”