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In the summer of 2021, I hosted three art-making events, open to all, in public parks in Brooklyn, NY. Participants—including families, groups of friends, and individuals—sat on the grass together and drew or painted while I made these portraits.
The light-drenched, dreamlike paintings each contain multiple perspectives on the act of art-making: that of the unseen artist and that of the subject. Each figure is engrossed in drawing or gazes reflectively into the surrounding greenery, just as I engage in mark-making and pause to behold the subject during the creation of each painting.
The sessions offered a refuge from the fast-paced rhythm of daily life, as participants slowed down to look carefully, reflect, and create. These paintings emerged from that collective concentration. Evoking a composite moment of summer stillness and creative absorption, they offer the viewer access to that refuge: an opportunity to enter a mode in which pausing and looking are celebrated.
Saidou with Healing Tattoo, oil on panel, 20” x 16”, 2021
Zach (In the Park), oil on panel, 18” x 14”, 2021
Drawing on the Grass, oil on panel, 18” x 24”, 2021
Isabel Before the Storm, oil on panel, 20” x 16”, 2021
Cathy Drawing, oil on panel, 18” x 14”, 2021
Sabrina Drawing, oil on panel, 24” x 18”, 2021