‘Portraiture Now| Communities’ at the NPG

This Artist’s Life visits the museum exhibition ‘Portraiture Now| Communities’ at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC:

‘Portraiture Now| Communities’ is currently on exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery (Eighth and F Streets, NW, Washington DC.) It is an intimate show set with care into well-lit, airy gallery spaces. I encourage you to see it before it closes on July 5, 2010.

The subjects in these contemporary portrait paintings are starkly ordinary. Artists Rose Frantzen, Jim Torok, and Rebecca Westcott present wordless communities whom I kept waiting to speak. The silence in the galleries was deafening for me as my mind kept seeking to fill in background information on the people before me, much as it would were I standing before Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of President George Washington.

I left the exhibition with a new view of what community is and what community does. Actually, what I left with was questions, such as “What would it look like if I drew 200 people in my own home town?” or “What would I learn about my neighbors if I could sit with each of them for a portrait sitting?” and “what would they learn about me?” It left me wondering, too, if the act of painting a set of portraits in my town would create some community, help define community for my subjects and their neighbors and friends. What would happen if we had more artists in more cities and towns in America, painting community, one person at a time?

Is there a community development grant, that would support this type pf project? If you know of one, please write to me at mahlborn@illuminationstudio.org

~ by unionsquarestylist on June 22, 2010.