Nettie Wakefield is a British artist, born in 1987 and based in London. She is best known for her Reverse Portrait series, detailed pencil drawings of people seen from behind, where the subject is the hair rather than the face.
Training
Wakefield spent summers at the Charles Cecil Studios in Florence, then took a foundation year at Chelsea College of Art. She went on to a BA in Art History at the University of Leeds and an MA in Drawing at Wimbledon College of Art, finishing in 2013.
Early shows
In 2013 she was shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize, whose exhibition toured the UK in 2014. Her first solo show, at the Rook and Raven Gallery in Fitzrovia in February 2014, was where the Reverse Portraits first drew attention.
In 2015 she was one of the artists in Banksy’s Dismaland in Weston-super-Mare, where she drew Reverse Portraits live. She was also shortlisted for the John Ruskin Prize that year.
Later shows included a one-night exhibition of drawn found objects at the Groucho Club in Soho during Frieze week 2017, group shows such as Beyond the Streets in the Hamptons, and a solo show called Brandy at the Jason Vass Gallery in Los Angeles.
In her own words
When Made in Shoreditch spoke to her in 2021, Wakefield said most of her ideas come from the things she draws. “If I find something aesthetically interesting for whatever reason, I have a bit of a compulsion to draw it,” she said. She used to sketch old master paintings in the National Gallery and named Gavin Turk, and his bronze bin bags, as a big influence.
She said she is drawn to contrast and light, which is why hair appeals to her. “Drawing shiny hair is very satisfying for me.”
She does not see herself as a pop artist, though she is often filed under street art because of Dismaland.
Brandy
The project she said she was proudest of is Brandy, an inflatable doll she recast in bronze in 2016 with help from Los Angeles artist Randall Harrington, whom she met at Dismaland. Wakefield describes Brandy as a comment on how society treats women and bodies as products with a use-by date, made permanently young and “ever available” until she is replaced.