Portrait of the artist’s father
When I started in on the portrait of my father for Subjective, I knew I wanted to paint him during a game of chess.
So we played a game and I documented my Papa along the way. As a bonus, my camera snapping away at him threw off his concentration a bit, so I nearly beat him!
Actually, that’s an exaggeration. The truth is that I came closer to beating him than I ever have before, but, since I’ve never won a game of chess against him in my 28 years, that’s not saying much! This is a photo taken directly after the checkmate moment.
Knowing that I would want some hat options to choose from for the painting, I asked my Papa to put on his fleece hat and pose.
This is a re-creation of the checkmate moment in his soft hat. It became the primary source image for the portrait I painted.
From the beginning, I knew that the portraits of the family which hang in my parents’ dining room would appear in my father’s portrait.
Or rather, I knew that I would be painting new portraits of my family to replace the ones that are behind my father in the photo.
It was important to me that these paintings within a painting appear in my father’s portrait.
Chess is one of the ways that my father connects with people…
photo by David
...and portrait painting is one of the ways that I do.
I liked the symmetry of including both these aspects of our personalities in a painting about us.
Around this time, I realized that there was something wrong with the composition of this painting.
I’d made the wall flat behind my Papa instead of angled as in the source photo. The reasoning was that this would show how portraits hung in a tiled manner can look something like the grid of a chess board…
...but the background just started to feel too much like the wall it was. It looked confining, and it was flattening the whole painting.
That’s why I punched a hole in it, adding a reference to the octagonal window that’s such a prominent feature of my parents’ house.
The eight-sided shape has appeared in my oeuvre before, and it’s important enough to me to be featured twice in my half of Subjective.
Gwenn Seemel
Father
2009
acrylic on canvas
36 x 36 inches
detail image of Father
It was fun working on these smaller portraits of my family.
detail image of Father
I got to paint likenesses from source images that might not make interesting pieces on their own, but that work well as part of a larger whole.
detail image of Father
My favorite is Roo’s portrait. Whenever the dog barks, Papa likes to encourage him, so it seemed only fitting to portray Roo barking in this portrait of my father.
photo by my mother
Papa with his portrait at the opening of Subjective in Portland.
To see Subjective, visit the North View Gallery by 5 February…
Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM
North View Gallery
Portland Community College Sylvania Campus
12000 SW 49th Avenue, Portland, OR 97219
RELATED ARTICLES:
- The Seemel twins
- My family and me
- Blind collaboration
CATEGORIES: - Process images - Subjective -
