I’ve long been fascinated by portraiture, but I didn’t have many opprotunities to learn or practice in high school or in my college courses. My sophomore year at Covenant College, I began asking my friends to sit for me in the art barn (our art building was an old barn converted into studio space). These first undirected attempts at the time felt quite satisfactory.
Charis, oil on wood, c. 2013
It wasn’t until I studied abroad at the Marchutz School of Art the fall of my senior year that I had greater opportunity for portraiture. Two or three weeks at the end of the semester were dedicated solely to portraits. Each students sat before the class for an hour and a half, providing two portraits in a three hour class. The rudimentary surface (aka cardboard) I was using soaked up the paint quickly, a quality I came to like a good deal. It allowed me to lay strokes on top of one another within the same sitting without the first strokes being wet. I concentrated on getting as much of the figure as I could into the painting, focusing not on the particulars of their features, but rather on the ensemble of the whole person. By the end of my time in France I had about 20 small portrait studies to take home with me.
Back at Covenant, I completed my Senior Project doing portraiture. I saw these as quick studies, chances to experiment and take risks while honoring my friends and mentors. I found that when I tried making the portraits with the whole figure as I had at Marchutz, I wasn’t able to have the kind of one to one experience I had hoped for, so I ended up focusing largely just on their faces.
I used the opportunity to explore different ways of trying to get at the personalities of my friends through various approaches in my painting, some to greater success than others.
When I returned to Marchutz in 2016, portraiture became the thing I loved most. Each person compelled me for their own unique way of being and existing in the world. The physical components of a person, as well as the manner in which they sat - sitting straight up or leaning to the side-, the tilt of their head, and glance of their eyes seemed to reveal aspects of a person’s inner life and personality. By approaching portraiture in a new way, particular to the portrait, I was able to explore what was unique to that person.
Since returning to the US in 2018, I’ve had less opportunities for portraiture, but I was able to do some with a group that meant every other week until the pandemic hit.
Lauren, oil on canvas, 9” x 12”, 2020.