{"id":974,"date":"2011-03-04T00:27:14","date_gmt":"2011-03-04T08:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/roselinahung.com\/blog\/?p=974"},"modified":"2024-03-19T00:19:08","modified_gmt":"2024-03-19T07:19:08","slug":"portrait-painting-as-an-act-of-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roselinahung.com\/blog\/portrait-painting-as-an-act-of-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Portrait Painting as an Act of Love"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Nina, Oil on canvas (2006)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I was doing research for my MA thesis paper on portraiture, in 2003, I came across a story by Pliny the Elder.\u00a0 It was about the invention of drawing\/painting.\u00a0 A Corinthian maiden traced the profile of her lover using charcoal and the shadow of his face on a wall.\u00a0 He was about to depart for war, and it was a way to remember him by.<\/p>\n

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Martin, Oil on canvas (2004)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While I was at Banff, I was thinking a lot about love and art.\u00a0 I thought about my practice of portrait painting and how I understood it as an act of love.\u00a0 In my art practice, I work in two veins: personal<\/em> and public<\/em>.\u00a0 There are the personal portraits of friends, family and loves; and there are the pop culture paintings of people.\u00a0 In this instance, I am talking only about the personal portraits, not portrait commissions or the pop culture \u201cpublic\u201d paintings.\u00a0 When painting a portrait of someone I am familiar with and close to, it is an intimate act.\u00a0 When there is love, whether it is platonic or romantic, that goes into the painting; this can also become a very sensual act as well.\u00a0 I will spend hours looking at the portrait subject\u2019s face, both through the photograph I am working from as well as the painting I am creating.\u00a0 Looking into one\u2019s eyes, studying every line of one\u2019s face; the shape of the eyes, nose, and lips; and how the hair falls just so. \u00a0From stroking and feeling every curve on the face to touching the lips with the paintbrush and slowly smoothing the paint over until the expression on the lips is caught perfectly, I will spend hours and weeks focused on this one person.\u00a0 And I do not paint at arm\u2019s distance.\u00a0 The amount of detail that I put into a painting requires that I be physically very close to the surface of the painting while I\u2019m working.\u00a0 The entire process is not unlike the intimacy of studying a lover\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

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Beth I, Oil on wood (2006)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Painting a portrait, for me, is a very personal and intimate act.\u00a0 I only paint those that I like or love.\u00a0 Why would I choose to paint someone I disliked or hated \u2013 to have to look at them daily and invest so much emotion and time would be like torture for myself.<\/p>\n

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Nicky (The Arbutus), Oil on linen (2008)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And for this reason, that portrait painting is a loving act, sometimes I have been confused when the subject doesn\u2019t understand it that way and can only see the superficial aspect of the representation and are not happy with the final result because they do not think they look \u201cbeautiful\u201d.\u00a0 It hurts me as friend\/love\/family member more than as an artist, because to me, it is such a personal investment and an act of love.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Grace (Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am), Oil on board (2008)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If I choose to paint your portrait, it is because you are beautiful to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was doing research for my MA thesis paper on portraiture, in 2003, I came across a story by Pliny the Elder.\u00a0 It was about the invention of drawing\/painting.\u00a0 A Corinthian maiden traced the profile of her lover using charcoal and the shadow of his face on a wall.\u00a0 He was about to depart […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-with-sidebar","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[111,263,275,61,262,98,15,112,23],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roselinahung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roselinahung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roselinahung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roselinahung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roselinahung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=974"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/roselinahung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3334,"href":"https:\/\/roselinahung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions\/3334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roselinahung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roselinahung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roselinahung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}