Printed Pages: Gilbert and George

Alice Tye was asked to paint representations of Gilbert and George, their outfits and everything in between for It’s Nice That’s bi-annual magazine Printed Pages.

When commissioned for a project like this, Alice “always starts by collecting as many photographs of the subject as possible which could be relevant to the brief,” she says. “Then I work from there, gathering lots of references for different elements such as backgrounds, furniture, food, clothing etc.”

With this varied reference material saved on her desktop, Alice started her roughs, a stage for her where she creates “a number of different digital collages from the reference images I collect,” she says. Then, “I play with layout, cropping, colour changes so I can give the client a number of options to choose from. Once the final composition for each illustration is selected, I paint directly from the collage.”