Friday marked the 10 year anniversary of music legend Amy Winehouse’s sad passing. Time has passed but it is clear that Amy’s impact and musical legacy remain.
Pop artist Gerald Laing captured an infamous moment between Amy and her then husband Blake Fielder-Civil in his 2007 work ‘The Kiss’. The painting became Gerald’s iconic image for his contemporary work and was hailed as his ‘new Bardot for a new era’.
Gerald was best known in the 60’s for his paintings from media images of starlets and astronauts, and in later years became fascinated by what he called Amy’s ‘episodic’ life. He was offered the chance to meet her several times but always said ‘later’, as he wanted to stay true to his Pop Art roots and focus on her media image rather than be influenced by having met her. He said: ‘For the past three years I have been painting various contemporary images, but the one subject which has engaged me most is Amy Winehouse, and there is no doubt that she has become my most recent muse. What interests me is the combination of the wonderful graphic power of her visual image and the extraordinary and almost mythical events of her life. The latter are always misunderstood, misinformed and misrepresented by the media; but they are the stuff from which a mythology is created.’
