"Portrait of a Young Man/Woman" is a group of new works based on the 15th century male and female portrait. The sitter in the Renaissance portrait was mostly depicted gazing to the side onto their own life and time. I have here reversed their glance toward us and our world - opposite of what we have done to them over the last 600 years.
As a young artist, I lived in Italy where I became deeply inspired by art from the early Christian Church and from the culture of this time. I still travel to Italy each year for work and to renew my interest and admiration of Renaissance art. My new works combine my passion for the Renaissance as expressed in a more aggressive approach to portraits.
My focus on this new group of works is based on a more bold and rough execution of these pieces which emphasizes the textured surface and the material. This creates visual tension between texture and image, and a further blurring between representation and abstraction.
