Sitters                                                                     

By Russ White

On View January 13- February 13

Artist Statement:

The pictures in this exhibition are part photo, part collage, part drawing, and part painting — constructed images of constructed spaces. Likely strangers to most viewers, the sitters in each portrait are the artist’s friends and collaborators, professional models and interested acquaintances, everyday people rendered in their own moments of repose.

This show marks a shift in White’s practice from drawing towards painting, so it’s fitting that we find these people in the studio, sitting under lights on the stage of a seamless backdrop. It’s a stylized take on traditional portraiture, calling to mind works ranging from early Renaissance religious icons to 19th century studio portraits to more modern and contemporary works by Wayne Thiebaud, Amy Sherald, Alice Neel, and David Hockney.

Building on White’s previous work in figure study, in which the backgrounds dissolved into open, abstract landscapes, this series is more rooted in a sense of place, which grew out of an interest in still life. Hence, the sitters are often joined by potted plants in various states of abstraction, helping to animate these still life portraits through the balance between flatness and depth, detail and simplicity, and reality and construction.

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