FASHION
After training in fashion and textiles in Liverpool, Tim moved to London in the late eighties and became a freelance costume designer, working on pop videos and television commercials and as a stylist for Vanity Fair magazine.
He began painting in 1999 and has mounted four highly successful solo exhibitions. His work has featured in television advertising campaigns and he has undertaken many private portrait commissions. A popular range of greetings cards bearing Tim's images has been sold internationally.
In between paintings he currently co designs the b-rude clothing range with Boy George and Mike Nicholls which has been shown in New York, Moscow and London.
by QX magazine
TIM PERKINS has just completed a series of portraits of the accused, and the results are on display at FIRST OUT from Monday (24th June). Perkins’ paintings seem at first like Warholisations; colourised movie stills of the stars, full-face on square canvases. They are much better. Warhol’s screen-prints often look hastily done, streaky, and half-finished; these are skilfully hand-painted in smooth acrylic using a palette of oil-slick black with rich jewel colours, and warm flesh tones.
In the soft diffused afternoon light of his glass-roofed Clerkenwell studio. Tim puts finishing touches to a 39” square study of Marlene, her hair glows golden apricot, and her eyes flash deep emerald green beneath royal purple lids. The studio is amazingly neat, considering this is also where he makes costumes with designer Dean Bright.
“You have to be really organised or nothing gets done”, he says as he cleans his brush, “and time can’t be wasted.” Tim has worked in fashion for the last decade; he started with menswear, and has branched out designing stage costumes, styling pop videos and commercials, and works as a stylist to photographer Annie Liebowitz for Vanity Fair. He has a strong sense of colour, and recently he has been commissioned to refurbish interiors, and create soft furnishings. “PVC sofa covers with piping EVERYWHERE. Painting is much more relaxing work. It feels like a luxury compared to running yards of material through a machine all day. That’s more like being in Mike Baldwin’s sweatshop at times”.
He has already designed a series of cards (you can get them in American Retro and Prowler, or through www.bigtwistcards.co.uk), featuring various movie stars: Liz Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Paul Newman, Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand, Elvis … “I was surprised at how much more I preferred painting the men to the women. I’m definitely going to be working on more of those,” he says, “… and I’d like to do some paintings of people with extreme plastic surgery.” A massive photo of Jocelyn Wildenstein dominates the room. “What about her? I ask, “Oh definitely. And I might even try doing Pete Burns.” Tim has often made costumes for the exotic Mr Burns in the past, and it is perhaps rather daunting to paint a portrait of someone you had first-hand experience of. “Pete changes his appearance so often you’d never get the painting finished.” - QX Feature by Donald.
