The First Subjects
"Out in Yonkers: A series of Portraits from the Yonkers LGBTQ Community"
Paintings of people are the engine that makes me want to paint. I see the world around me through the lens of a vast gallery of art historical images. "Out in Yonkers; Portraits from the Yonkers LGBTQ Community" is a series of portraits painted in the fall of 2023, under the auspices of an ArtsWestchester ArtsAlive grant. My goal was to create a visual record, in the tradition of European portraiture, of this, my, community, which is in danger of discrimination and erasure, with the hope of creating a memorial that endures well into the future. I am very aware just how important a visual record of people is to the history that remembers them. By creating these images, I am honoring Harvey Milks' dictum that LGBTQ folks should come out wherever they are, so that the world can see just how numerous, varied and ordinary we are.I am profoundly gratefully to the folks who posed for me, and were therefore willing to be forever "out in Yonkers".
Below are images recording the process for this project. I began with very large preliminary sketches on paper using acrylic gouache. These were done from observation, and have me a sense of the scale and gestures of each of my subjects' bodies.
While they ere posing, I took photographs, which was my source for the drawings that went on the canvas. I began painting with very bright underpainted colors. The first phase of painting focused on painting flesh, faces, arms, hands, legs, feet and clothing. The final stage involved resolving the spaces that each figure sat in.
These paintings were exhibited at the White Pains Library Museum Gallery in White Plains, New York, from January 4 to February 29, 2024.
Below are images recording the process for this project. I began with very large preliminary sketches on paper using acrylic gouache. These were done from observation, and have me a sense of the scale and gestures of each of my subjects' bodies.
While they ere posing, I took photographs, which was my source for the drawings that went on the canvas. I began painting with very bright underpainted colors. The first phase of painting focused on painting flesh, faces, arms, hands, legs, feet and clothing. The final stage involved resolving the spaces that each figure sat in.
These paintings were exhibited at the White Pains Library Museum Gallery in White Plains, New York, from January 4 to February 29, 2024.