Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Painting Portraits

I've mainly done two types of paintings since graduating from art school ten years ago: conceptual, layered watercolors of several images positioned on one frame, and watercolor portraits.

Portraits have been done for a long long time in painting history. Of course, I am a little concerned that portraits are not always considered relevant to the contemporary art scene. What's fresh about painting a face?

(c)2003 Josh McCallister 
Fah
Watercolor on paper, 15 x 12
It's not exactly an answer to the question of relevance, but my favorite portraits are often advocacy paintings. I make an image of a person living on the reservation, or in some slum in Brazil or Thailand. These people matter. I want them to be remembered and considered. The viewer has no real relationship to the person being represented. (No mystery that they don't sell!)
Still, I aim for a vibrant quality in the portraits I come up with.

No comments:

Post a Comment