A note from the artist:

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My focus in painting is emotion before realism. While I try to make the best representations of the person, I also allow my emotional ties to control it. Truthfully, SL15’s portrait reminds me of my own grandfather who has since passed away. They share many features. So, not only was I able to embrace the rich history of the subject, but I was able to add more vivid emotions into the process by relating my love for my grandfather into my brushstrokes.

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As a painter, my primary focus is not often human faces, but rather emotion based. Being someone who paints their experience with PTSD, I typically paint the less cheery side of life. However, to increase my potential, I took on the challenge of portraits.

This painting of SL15 is the second portrait I’ve ever done of someone I did not personally know. But when I come to do a portrait, I feel this personal obligation to the subject. That their trust in me to recreate them requires of me a heightened level of awareness in how I got about my process. I try my best to recreate their expression, typically working with photographic references and a grid to reduce the complexity down to manageable sections. Before painting however, I decide on a colour for the piece – either one that the subject associates with themselves, or when given the choice myself, one that conveys the life experience of them instead.