Arturo, 2008

Arturo, 2009.

Oil on Canvas, 48" x 36.

This is a portrait of my dear friend Arturo. It was a gift for his 60th birthday. I wish the image was better but he wanted it before I could shoot it properly. I can't stress how important it is to take good images of your work BEFORE it leaves your studio. 

I worked on this one for about three months, and it is my first portrait in a decade. I asked Arturo to think of someone he loved when I took the reference photos for the painting and I think I captured an interesting mood. He refers to the piece as," The new me. What I aspire to be."

I was playing around with Robert Doak's Flemish white and copal medium(among many other ingredients). If you've never been to Doak's place, you must spend an afternoon over there. The man knows his painting and his Flemish White recipe has been written about and celebrated by artists like John Currin. I learned more about oil painting from him in two hours than at 5 years at the Museum School.

I used many applications of thin fleshtone washes mixed with lead glass powder which I think adds a luminosity to the skin especially on the right cheek and the contour lines around the head.

In the end I see this as a portrait of punk, as Arturo was witness to its birth and its ups and downs.