Close encounter

Bill Clinton looks down at me with that famous, lazy grin. His perfect American teeth show bright white and his blue eyes lock on to mine. I take a few steps forward (who wouldn’t?) but as I draw closer something odd happens to Bill: his face blurs, its outline distorts, wobbling as if underwater. A few steps more and his features have begun to pixelate into small squares and the smooth pink of his cheeks has unmixed itself — separating out into a hundred different colours. Bill is going to pieces. Closer still, now eyeball to nostril with President Clinton, I lose all sense that I’m looking at a portrait: in front of me is an abstract painting — a vast grid-full of sherbert swirls: mauves, oranges, lemon yellow, fuchsia.

As I walk backwards, Bill’s 9-ft oil-painted head pulls itself together and begins to grin again, and, beside me, the artist, Chuck Close — dressed in designer black in his electric wheelchair — grins too.

‘I always liked magic as a kid,’ he says, ‘and the way I think of my work is that it’s like doing a trick — pulling a rabbit out of a hat — but revealing how you did it at the same time: you can look at the painting up close and see the mechanics, or from further back and enjoy the illusion. Either is all right.’

And does Bill like it? ‘Bill hasn’t seen it yet, but I think he’s a little anxious,’ says Close, fondly (Bill is a good friend). ‘When he came round to sit for me, he was very worried because he’d forgotten to take his water pills.’ Water pills? ‘For reducing the bags around his eyes. Bill does have amazing eyes.