Portfolio > Portraits

polychrome figurative portrait head of artist William Beckman
Cast Ultracal and oil paint
l
2006
polychrome figurative portrait head of artist Andres Serrano
Cast Ultracal and oil paint
life-size, portrait hangs at the eye-level of the subject
2006
sculpted painted portrait of Andres Serrano
Cast Hydrocal, oil paint
Approximately life-size
2006
Portrait head of photographer Dawoud Bey
Hydrocal and oil paint
life size, portrait hangs at the eye level of the subject
2006
Jason Salavon Portrait Head 
(detail)
Cast Ultracal and oil paint
life-size, portrait hangs at the eye-level of the subject
2006
sculpted, painted portrait head of artist Rico Gatson
Cast Hydrocal, oil paint
life-size
2002
sculpted, painted portrait head of artist Rico Gatson
Cast Hydrocal, oil paint
life-size
2002
polychrome portrait head of Marian Griffiths former director of Sculpture Center
Cast Ultracal and oil paint
life-size, portrait hangs at the eye-level of the subject
2002
sculpted painted portrait of Marion Griffiths
Cast Hydrocal, oil paint
Approximately life-size
2002
sculpted painted portrait of artist Jackie Chang
Cast Hydrocal, oil paint
Life-size
2002
sculpted painted portrait of artist Jackie Chang
Cast Hydrocal, oil paint
Life-size
2002
sculpted painted portrait head of artist Francis Cape
Cast polyester resin, oil paint
Slightly smaller than life-size
2002
sculpted painted portrait of gallerist Florence Lynch
Cast Hydrocal, oil paint
Life-size
2002
sculpted, painted portrait head of artist Julian Jackson
Cast Hydrocal, oil paint
Life-size
2002
sculpted painted portrait head of curator Sabine Walli
Cast polyester resin, oil paint
Slightly smaller than life-size
2001
sculpted painted portrait of publisher Knight Landesman
Cast polyester resin, oil paint
Slightly smaller than life-size
2001
polychrome figurative portrait head of ArtForum's Knight Landesman
Cast Ultracal and oil paint
life-size, portrait hangs at the eye-level of the subject
2002
sculpted painted portraits of Larry Walczak and Matthew Freedman
Cast Hydrocal, oil paint
Slightly smaller than life-size
2002
Metaphor Contemporary Art Gallery 
Installation
Cast polyester resin, oil paint
each head slightly smaller than life-size
2002
Five Heads
Cast polyester resin, oil paint
each head around life-size
2002
Early Portraits
Cast polyester resin, oil paint
Heads are slightly smaller than life-size and life-size
2002

The heads are modeled in clay from observation and photographs and then cast in resin or gypsum and fiberglass and painted in oil. They are roughly life size or smaller and hang at the eye level of each subject.

Pictured here are selections from an ongoing project of heads of people from the art world (artists, gallerists, critics, curators, collectors) have been exhibited in several venues including the National Portrait Gallery in DC, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield Connecticut and Metaphor Contemporary Art in Brooklyn.

National Portrait Gallery Catalog

Adrich exhibition brochure with essay by Richard Klein

Recent Salamatina Gallery installation of a selection of portrait heads

Images of sculpture from the Salamatina exhibition including detail images of individual heads

GENERAL STATEMENT ON PORTRAITS:
These portrait heads are part of an ongoing series which I have been working on over the last few years, and intend to continue indefinitely into the future.

I have always been interested in the conventions of the portrait as it is a staple of sculpture through much of art history. The way in which a head is both terminated and displayed are crucial formal considerations that have definite psychological and metaphorical implications.

I am interested in making these heads into autonomous objects, therefore each is rounded into a complete form rather than ended in a cut at the neck. I hope that hanging them at eye level helps to create a suspension of disbelief, allowing the viewer to see the head in its own space, literally and symbolically. As they are at the eye level of each individual, they are in the location that one would encounter the face of the actual person in a social situation. The installation as a whole is designed to evoke the social environment of an opening- clusters of people who would be likely to attend a reception in a white- box gallery space.

Sculpted and painted from observation, these heads are not intended to be hyper-real or special effect-like. They are effigies rather than literal stand-ins for their subjects. I am interested in the problem of achieving a "likeness" as it is both essential to the idea of a portrait and, yet largely irrelevant to the idea of a sculpture. I do think that the specificity and attention involved in achieving a likeness transcend the simple recognizability of a given individual.

These portraits are in one sense a contrast to my other work. In many of my other projects, I use my own head and body as source material. In those pieces, I am interested in treating myself as a stand in for an "everyman" or perhaps an "every woman" and am not interested so specifically in the sculptures or photographs as portraits of an individual.