Noreen joins Row of talent

11:11am Thursday 16th October 2008

JIMI Hendrix, Annie Lennox, Billy Connolly and Elvis Presley are just a few of the iconic figures to feature in Leyton-based artist Noreen Denzil’s latest solo show.

Captured in pastels, her portraits are to go on display at the Arndean Gallery on the famous Cork Street in Mayfair, nicknamed “Gallery Row” for its parade of renowned display spaces.

“It’s portrait work that I specialise in,” said Denzil, 42.

“This particular exhibition has figures from across the world of sport, music, film - people who have had an impact on their industry over the last 80 or 90 years.”

Working mainly from photographs, Denzil’s strikingly life-like work captures the various icons, many of whom are now long dead, in the height of their glory days.

“It features people like Elvis, Muhammad Ali, George Best, Madonna - there’s quite a wide spectrum of people with somewhere in the region of about 25 pieces,” she says.

Having been drawing “since she could hold a pencil”, Denzil has never had any formal training and still has a day job working for a shipping company in the City - but hopes one day to become a full-time artist.

Inspired by the portrait artists in the Montmartre area of Paris, which Glasgow-born Denzil visited as an 18-year-old, she has previously featured in group shows in London and has even sold a portrait of Princess Diana to one of her close friends.

“It was one of the paintings I donated to Fashion Acts, an AIDS charity which Jasper Conran was the patron of, and David Bailey had his work shown in that exhibition,” she explains.

“It was a nice compliment to have someone of that stature buying the piece of work.”

Icons by Noreen Denzil is at the Arndean Gallery, Cork Street, Mayfair from October 20 to 25. The gallery is open from 10am to 6pm.