Ordinary Saints
Firefly: Mary Herman
2014, oil and alkyd on canvas;
48″ x 36″
2014, oil and alkyd on canvas;
48″ x 36″
After many years of working with the human figure in an implicit narrative context, I decided to try to paint particular persons (instead of “types” or generalized figures that are subservient to the narrative). The traditional posed portrait was not what I was after, rather I wanted to make an image that seemed to mediate the “real presence” of the person (as opposed to an idealized or flattering portrayal). When I completed the painting of my father, I suddenly remembered my childhood desire as a young artist: to make a painting of a person that “felt” like them even more than simply reproducing a likeness. I’ve included a couple formal portrait commissions I’ve done for comparison. The requirements of formal institutional portraiture were a challenge but I believe that I managed, in spite of these constraints, to communicate something of the person there as well.