Portraiture
China Adams | Jenn Berger | Folkert de Jong
Alexandra Grant | Tim Hawkinson | John Lithgow
Nathan Redwood | Douglas Tausik Ryder
Patty Wickman | Alexandra Wiesenfeld | HK Zamani
September 24 - November 5
CMay gallery is pleased to present Portraiture, a group exhibition focusing on the idea of “portraiture” through a broad range of stylistic approaches and concepts.
The show includes nine Los Angeles-based artists and two artists from Europe (Folkert de Jong, Amsterdam; Douglas Tausik Ryder, England) whose diverse interpretation of the human face and body are conveyed through a variety of media including photography, drawing, paintings and sculpture.
Portraiture is one of the oldest subjects in art. Dating back to cave paintings, the human form has been at the center of the artists' practice. This continued on for centuries, artists telling the stories about human kind. A subset of this endeavor, portraiture focused on the individual and in some cases depict the artist themselves. This practice incrementally changed over the centuries until the advent of photography challenged the traditional notion and purpose of the portrait painter. Photography replaced the need for the traditional painted portraits and although this was not immediate, by the end of the 19th century, the traditional portrait was mostly replaced by the photograph.
Artists started to push the depiction of the figure into new realms and this has continued on into the digital age.
Although more traditional portraiture still exists and holds its own amongst the new media, more and more artists have explored new ways to depict the human figure.
In this exhibition, artists have explored a broad range of techniques and concepts investigating the subject matter ranging from China Adam’s x-rays to Tim Hawkinson cast body parts to Patty Wickman’s oil paintings.
Selected Works
