Portraits

I am attracted to faces because in many ways they’re the most familiar thing we observe and also the subject we know the least about.  There‘s an obvious psychological draw.

Psychological portraiture was an inevitable progression of my painting. I began with observation-based training, roomscapes and landscapes.  Then I self-imposed a transition into more abstract expressions of the same observations.

Around 2004, a simple daily routine struck me as a natural extension of observation-based painting. Looking in a mirror is 98 percent self-examination.  That translates to psychological and emotional self-awareness.

My studio in downtown Des Moines used to be cluttered with the props you might expect of a portrait artist: anatomical charts and human skulls, mirrors and even dolls. 

"What does it mean to paint oneself over and over? Is it strange?" -Jim Duncan, DSM 2013
It’s definitely a probe that brings intellectual weight down upon you.

*excerpts from Brent Holland, DSM 2013