Back of the Ed

“For too long portraiture has focused on the front of the body,” explains Ed Woolverton, who works under the name Back of the Ed. “The whole back of the body rarely gets a look in. Look at all the portraits in the National Portrait Gallery. Almost all are of the front of the model. This is a terrible frontal supremacy that needs to be stopped in its tracks. I have developed the Backal perspective, trying to bring to backs and backs of heads the attention that has been stolen from them.”

Ed lives in a disused shop on Oxford Street, where he has plenty of chances to sketch the backs of shoppers walking past.

”None of us have any real idea what our back looks like. We put so much energy into preparing our faces for going out, but next to no time on our backs. The back is the only place where personality spills out unplanned and with a real integrity that is missing from conventional portraits.”

Ed is open to commissions if you would like the back of your head, or the back of the head of someone else created for you.