Andrew MacDonald
Twelve Faces, One Story
On the sofa in a quiet house by the foot of Alexandra Palace Park sits Andrew. The scent of oil paint mingles with that of strong coffee. The room is warm with winter light. Behind the sofa, twelve faces stare back. Each one a story.
Andrew studies the paintings. “I remember how everyone made me feel,” he says, his sweater speckled with dried paint. “And that’s how I have tried to portray them.”
He’s a portrait painter, yes. But there’s something more elemental in his approach. A musician by trade, he’s spent years listening for rhythm in silence, finding harmony in the spaces between notes. That same instinct now guides his hand across canvas. Shapes and light. Curves and shadows.
I first met Andrew a few years ago. I watched him work, drawn to how he, with very few brush strokes, can convey the story of a person. Since then, I’ve photographed him many times, always searching for the moment where the story reveals itself in the paint.
Back in December, I dropped by again - this time to see something different. A project that had taken him a full year: twelve portraits, one painted each month, to raise awareness and support for the Hornsey Food Bank. “They’re not just faces. They’re parts of a larger whole. A community. People we walk past every day.”
The exhibition was a simple idea at first. A quiet gesture. “I just wanted to do something that mattered.” But it grew. With each portrait, a conversation unfolded. Volunteers. Visitors. Strangers who became subjects.
What began as an artistic experiment turned into a collaboration, a shared story told through twelve sets of eyes. The food bank, once just a place for necessities, became a setting for connection. And Andrew, with his quiet gaze and musician’s memory, became its chronicler.
He never paints in front of the person. Listens. Watches. Then, later, lets the memory rise. “It’s like composing a song,” he says. “You hear it in your head long before you play a note.”
As the portraits neared completion, we decided to take the project a step further - Andrew and I. We began work on a book, pairing my photographs with his paintings. A book about the food bank took shape. It became our way of anchoring his exhibition in something lasting, something others could take home and hold in their hands.
To date, the book have raised £2,700 for the Hornsey Food Bank. A small figure, maybe. But we hope it can make a difference.
When the food bank opened on the 23rd July 2020, there were 5 guests collecting for 15 people.
On the 19th December 2024, there were 404 guests collecting for 1351 people.