Gwenn Seemel has traveled some interesting avenues in pursuit of interesting subjects.
The Southeast Portland resident, a self-described conceptual portrait artist, has committed to canvas the images of Portlanders from varying walks of life: politicians, media figures, gallery owners, cops. Then she got a really crazy notion. Sugar daddies. "I don't know what hit me," she says. "I decided to go to the Men Seeking Women."
Seemel responded to 28 ads on Craigslist from men who advertised -- to varying degrees -- an ability to provide financially for a female companion. She made them an offer: They let her take some mug shots with a camera; she'd paint their portrait for public display. The result, a show titled 'Mutually Beneficial,' can be seen at the Old Town gallery Concrete the Studio through this month.
Though she was single at the time, Seemel wasn't looking to hook up. Well, not entirely. "I was open to it, but I wasn't hoping for it," she says. "I did become friends with one of them."
Seemel, whose several shows in Portland in recent years have included nothing but portraits, had multiple objectives. A working artist, she was promoting her abilities. She also is intrigued by the Internet as a social tool. And she wanted to explore the idea of mutual need forming the basis of relationships. "There's so much about the starving artist looking for someone to feed her," she says. "The 'I can take care of you.' I know there are a lot of artists that wish they could just work."
"I produce these series that have a concept. In the case of 'Mutually Beneficial,' it's the larger story of Internet dating. I'm very interested in exploring my world. My excuse is that I'm going to paint their portrait, but I also get a chance to pick their brain."
Text and subtext
Seemel, who is tall and rangy and fresh-faced, went looking for a few good men, six to be exact. "I was very aboveboard with all of them," she says. "I made it clear that I was getting a show out of it. I wanted to get a cross-section, from the post that said 'I have a job' to the one that said 'I want to be your sugar daddy.' Their personal ads are represented as messages in a bottle."
One of the correspondences went south almost immediately, leading to a series of challenging and at times threatening e-mails from the would-be subject. "I was actually afraid at one point," she says. "He became angry with me, and then he'd tell me I'm talented." In 'Mutually Beneficial,' the episode is chronicled skillfully in an accompanying text. The two never met face to face; the relationship is represented by a moody, abstract study in shades of blue on a patchwork canvas. "It is what it is," Seemel says. "I really have no idea who this person is. I don't know if he knows he's even part of the project. That was a good lesson for me. I'm really kind of naive. I always trust people. I don't understand when people aren't honest."
Shortly after securing the six men for the project, Seemel met her current boyfriend, also via the Internet. His portrait hangs alongside hers in the exhibition. "The moral of the story is, I don't need any of these six men that can provide for me financially," she says. "I need someone to provide for me emotionally. I felt it was an appropriate ending to the story."
Seemel, whose family moved to Portland when she was an adolescent, graduated from Willamette University in Salem in 2003 with a degree in studio arts. She works out of the basement of a home she shares with her brother, setting up canvases amid a rather impressive collection of washing machines. "I call it the Laundromat Period," she says.
She creates portraits from photographs she takes of her subjects. "It's more a portrait of a moment," she says. "More spontaneous. More dynamic. I would never show my photographs, but I do take pictures obsessively."
The paintings in 'Mutually Beneficial' are priced at $900, which Seemel says is standard for their size, 24 by 18 inches. She charges more for larger canvases and paints prolifically.
"I don't struggle," she says. "In 2005, I really decided to push myself with the output. This is my job. It's what I do for a living." Seemel has painted dozens of portraits in each of the past three years, "around one a week," by her reckoning.
"It's all my grandfather's fault," she says. "He has such a face. I became obsessed with doing his portrait. I was never really into the abstract stuff." While she may one day move away from portraits, she says the form doesn't limit her. "The human face is just endless. At this point, I don't feel like I'll ever get bored. A single brushstroke can change the entire expression. There's always a new face." If so, it seems likely that Seemel will find it.
