Canvas Portrait Paintings

Colorful contemporary portrait of famous movie star John Wayne by Texas-based artist Robert Sandman. The work features a realistic portrayal of the actor dress in his iconic cowboy a...

Shipping Procedure FREE Shipping Worldwide Ships in a well-protected tube. This work is unique, not a print or other type of copy. Accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity. Art is often a celebration of beauty, and Olaosun Oluwapelumi's artwork "Black Beauty...

Everything that exists is a result of what we believe to be real. This reality serves as evidence of immortality. The soul and spirit are immortal, temporarily separating from the bo...

Shipping Procedure Ships in a well-protected tube from Nigeria This work is unique, not a print or other type of copy. Accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity. About Artist Top...

Shipping Procedure Ships in a well-protected tube from Nigeria This work is unique, this is not a print or other type of copy. Accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity. About Ar...

"Navajita" (2018) is a mixed media painting on canvas by Inés Silvalde, measuring 20 x 25 x 3.5 cm. This work, part of the Influencers de Taberna series, captures a surreal yet intim...

The need to see beauty in our natural self and accept our own. Yet appreciation of other cultures is not bad but not at the expense of ours. Seeing ourselves, knowing ourselves, and ...

Shipping Procedure Ships in a well-protected tube. This work is unique, not a print or other type of copy. Accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity. About Artist Jason Langa...

"Cop on Vacation" Brute Gay LGBT Contemporary NYC Male Portrait Painting Robert Loughlin (1949-2011) "Cop on Vacation" Oil and mixed media on canvas 24 h x 30 w inches Signed and ti...

In the time of my mother and the women before her in her generation line, women are not allowed to talk or have a genuine opinion on the crucial and critical matters of emergency in ...

Note: We highly recommend shipping through 1stDibs for its cost effectiveness, full insurance coverage, and reliable handling. While standard parcel services are an option, the defau...

"Adebowale" is a native name from the Yoruba language (dialect) in the western part of Nigeria which means wealth your welcome to my humble home….. Painting Ships in a well-protect...

Shipping Procedure Ships in a well-protected tube from Nigeria This work is unique, not a print or other type of copy. Accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity. “Your mind knows...

Painting Ships in a well-protected tube from Nigeria This work is unique, this is not a print or other type of copy. Accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity (Issued by the Gallery)

In her art, Yvonne Michiels (1966) depicts personal stories about beauty, emotions and mortality. In order to heighten the emotional charge, Yvonne often uses young models. Their h...

America Martin "Woman Hears Thunder & Lightning" Oil & Acrylic on Canvas 51.5 x 41.5 in. Exploring the identity of both her namesake and country, LA-based America Martin draws inspi...

Shipping Procedure Ships in a well-protected tube. This work is unique, not a print or other type of copy. Accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity. About Artist Adebayo Taiwo, ...

Original and unique work by Russell Young. Enamel and diamond dust screen print on linen, Black + White, unframed dimensions 62 x 48 inches, 2011, from the series "Diamond Dust". Da...

This artwork conveys a journey of discovery, growth, and transformation. The figure stands amidst diverse landscapes, symbolizing the various stages and experiences in life. The suns...

Midnight, by Sergio Bazan Oil on canvas Image Size: 63.5 H x 62.5 W x 2 D inches Mounted on a stretcher Signed by artist This series works are centered on musical representation, th...

Lebanese American artist Sally K.'s captivating floral portraits are both mesmerizing and empowering. Her pop-realistic paintings are inspired by strong, feminine women, celebrating...

“Meet A man of unshakeable self-worth and conviction. He protects his essence and values, refusing to compromise his integrity while remaining true to himself. With quiet confidence ...

This shall pass, like a fleeting dream, A moment in time, a fleeting scheme, The winds of change will soon abate, And the stormy skies will soon relate, The sun will shine, the cloud...

Shipping Procedure Ships in a well-protected tube. This work is unique, not a print or other type of copy. Accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity. About Artist Elie HATUNGIMAN...

“Listen to your inner nature… for it is a deep and powerful source of wisdom, beauty and truth, ever flowing through you… Learn to trust it, trust your intuition, and in good time, a...

This artwork is a wonderful portrait of grace and elegance, capturing the essence of boundless beauty and uniqueness of cultural heritage. The subject, a stunning black Yoruba girl i...

Pathfinder is Inspired by portraying the struggles, aspirations, and joys of women in my society, and to encourage viewers to connect with these experiences on a personal and emotion...

Shipping Procedure FREE Shipping Worldwide Ships in a well-protected tube from Nigeria This work is unique, not a print or other type of copy. Accompanied by a Certificate of Authent...

Oil on canvas realized by Sirio Pellegrini in 1960s. Hand signed lower right. Includes a wooden frame 37.5x27 cm. Very good condition. Sirio Pellegrini, born in Rome on March 1, ...

ANNA KINCAIDE "Beautiful Mistakes" Oil on Canvas 48 x 48 inches Communicating emotion and narrative with limited assistance from her figure’s facial expressions, Anna Kincaide creat...

Swiss artist Marion Duschletta transforms luxury objects and urban landscapes from around the world into unique layered artworks. She combines an intriguing mixture of urban photogra...

Artodyssey "Julita Malinowska's paintings belong to those, which once seen - are never forgotten. The open spaces, sometimes cool and bright, at other times heavily saturated with co...

The painting “Day of Confessions” conveys the sense of vulnerability and inner strength that arise at the moment of revelation. The woman in the foreground is holding not just champa...

"By Heart," a compelling artwork by Oyeleye Feranmi, beautifully captures the essence of unity and brotherhood transcending differences. In this poigna...

“I paint the human figure and explore further till I reach the Beauty of Being, the Soul.. the part of Human Being where everything is in total Serenity, Goodness and Harmony, where ...

Acrylic paint on canvas Hand-signed Unique work THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS OF MOHAMMAD ARIYAEI " Gentleness and oriental wisdom follow the supercharged bubbling to which we were accustomed from the previous deliberately art brut exhibition by Mohammad ARIYAEI. The Iranian painter's imagination moves serenely from the wildest frenzy to the meditative calm of great, fabulous stories. The artist then took pleasure in pouring the volcanic torrent of his barbaric figures onto the delicate latticework with which he is accustomed to lining his backgrounds with the patience of an illuminating monk. Already sweetness and paroxysm coexisted. Now gentleness wins. The trained imagination of the painter, yet spontaneously bubbling, by instinct as much as by erudition, has no difficulty in reconnecting with the abundant oriental tradition of the thousand and one nights, which, like a long underground river, resurfaces at the light of his painting. Spring renewal of traditions still alive. Systematic filling of space, a sort of oriental version of the Riches Heures...

Shipping Procedure FREE Shipping Worldwide Ships in a well-protected tube from Nigeria This work is unique, not a print or other type of copy. Accompanied by a Certificate of Authent...

Oil on canvas Karine Bartoli was born in 1971 in Ajaccio. She enrolled at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts in Marseille where she graduated in 1997. Since then she has ...

Shipping Procedure Ships in a well-protected tube from Nigeria This work is unique, not a print or other type of copy. Accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity (Issued by the Gal...

Maruzzella is one of the best works by the artist Marco Fariello realized in 2021. It is an academic drawing of a Portrait of a young woman with an enc...

Contemporary figurative acrylic on canvas painting by Polish artist Joanna Woyda. Painting is in minimalistic, pop art style. The artwork depicts a boy standing in the water. He is v...

Kasia Mazur is a very young artist, she is still studying painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk, where she also lives. She has already had exhibitions and I noticed her tale...

Portrait Of A Young Woman 2 - Figurative Oil Painting, New Renaissance Contemporary painting oil on canvas

Playing with the interaction between positive and negative space, and strong colors on neutral backgrounds, Canadian artist Virginie Schroeder creates pop art portraits and iconic po...

The underlying body of work is an exploration of texturizing distortion as a language of expression. The works explore an awaking of an Afrocentric consciousness connected to gender,...

Shipping Procedure Ships in a well-protected tube from Nigeria This work is unique, not a print or other type of copy. Accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity. “Your mind knows...

America Martin "Song For The Animals" Oil & Acrylic on Canvas 61.5 x 41.5 in. Framed Exploring the identity of both her namesake and country, LA-based America Martin draws inspirati...

An exquisite contemporary painting by Dutch artist, Hans Bouman. In this painting Bouman creates a captivating interplay of colors and forms that gives rise to an enigmatic abstract face that invites interpretation and contemplation. This captivating large-scale abstract painting is a harmonious blend of warm white, earthy tones, invigorating orange, and calming blue hues. Hans Bouman, born in the Netherlands in 1951, embarked on his artistic journey at the Amsterdam Graphic School and the Gerrit Rietveld Academy of Fine Arts. During the early 1980s, Paris became his haven of inspiration, where his debut in galleries marked the onset of an international presence that continues to flourish. Bouman's artistic evolution is characterized by cycles of creativity, but it is his larger-than-life hieratic heads that he is renown for. These remarkable pieces pay homage to influences as diverse as the Moai sculptures of Easter Island, the intricate masks of Africa...

This piece depicts famous French actress and model Brigitte Bardot in a trio composition. Done with beautiful expressive colors and a distinctive street art design, this piece pops w...

Elvis, Metallic Silver and Black Full Length Silkscreen Painting by Charles Lutz Silkscreen and silver enamel painted on vintage 1960's era linen with Artist's Denied stamp of the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board. 82" x 40" inches 2010 Lutz's 2007 ''Warhol Denied'' series gained international attention by calling into question the importance of originality or lack thereof in the work of Andy Warhol. The authentication/denial process of the [[Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board]] was used to create value by submitting recreations of Warhol works for judgment with the full intention for the works to be formally marked "DENIED". The final product of the conceptual project being "officially denied" "Warhol" paintings authored by Lutz. Based on the full-length Elvis Presley paintings by Pop Artist Andy Warhol in 1964, this is likely one of his most iconic images, next to Campbell's Soup Cans and portraits of Jackie Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Liz Taylor, and Marlon Brando. This is the rarest of the Elvis works from the series, as Lutz sourced a vintage roll of 1960's primed artist linen which was used for this one Elvis. The silkscreen, like Warhol's embraced imperfections, like the slight double image printing of the Elvis image. Lutz received his BFA in Painting and Art History from Pratt Institute and studied Human Dissection and Anatomy at Columbia University, New York. Lutz's work deals with perceptions and value structures, specifically the idea of the transference of values. Lutz's most recently presented an installation of new sculptures dealing with consumerism at Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater House in 2022. Lutz's 2007 Warhol Denied series received international attention calling into question the importance of originality in a work of art. The valuation process (authentication or denial) of the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board was used by the artist to create value by submitting recreations of Warhol works for judgment, with the full intention for the works to be formally marked "DENIED" of their authenticity. The final product of this conceptual project is "Officially DENIED" "Warhol" paintings authored by Lutz. Later in 2013, Lutz went on to do one of his largest public installations to date. At the 100th Anniversary of Marcel Duchamp's groundbreaking and controversial Armory Show, Lutz was asked by the curator of Armory Focus: USA and former Director of The Andy Warhol Museum, Eric Shiner to create a site-specific installation representing the US. The installation "Babel" (based on Pieter Bruegel's famous painting) consisted of 1500 cardboard replicas of Warhol's Brillo Box (Stockholm Type) stacked 20 ft tall. All 1500 boxes were then given to the public freely, debasing the Brillo Box as an art commodity by removing its value, in addition to debasing its willing consumers. Elvis was "the greatest cultural force in the Twentieth Century. He introduced the beat to everything, and he changed everything - music, language, clothes, it's a whole new social revolution." Leonard Bernstein in: Exh. Cat., Boston, The Institute of Contemporary Art and traveling, Elvis + Marilyn 2 x Immortal, 1994-97, p. 9. Andy Warhol "quite simply changed how we all see the world around us." Kynaston McShine in: Exh. Cat., New York, Museum of Modern Art (and traveling), Andy Warhol: Retrospective, 1996, p. 13. In the summer of 1963 Elvis Presley was just twenty-eight years old but already a legend of his time. During the preceding seven years - since Heartbreak Hotel became the biggest-selling record of 1956 - he had recorded seventeen number-one singles and seven number-one albums; starred in eleven films, countless national TV appearances, tours, and live performances; earned tens of millions of dollars; and was instantly recognized across the globe. The undisputed King of Rock and Roll, Elvis was the biggest star alive: a cultural phenomenon of mythic proportions apparently no longer confined to the man alone. As the eminent composer Leonard Bernstein put it, Elvis was "the greatest cultural force in the Twentieth Century. He introduced the beat to everything, and he changed everything - music, language, clothes, it's a whole new social revolution." (Exh. Cat., Boston, The Institute of Contemporary Art (and traveling), Elvis + Marilyn 2 x Immortal, 1994, p. 9). In the summer of 1963 Andy Warhol was thirty-four years old and transforming the parameters of visual culture in America. The focus of his signature silkscreen was leveled at subjects he brilliantly perceived as the most important concerns of day to day contemporary life. By appropriating the visual vernacular of consumer culture and multiplying readymade images gleaned from newspapers, magazines and advertising, he turned a mirror onto the contradictions behind quotidian existence. Above all else he was obsessed with themes of celebrity and death, executing intensely multifaceted and complex works in series that continue to resound with universal relevance. His unprecedented practice re-presented how society viewed itself, simultaneously reinforcing and radically undermining the collective psychology of popular culture. He epitomized the tide of change that swept through the 1960s and, as Kynaston McShine has concisely stated, "He quite simply changed how we all see the world around us." (Exh. Cat., New York, Museum of Modern Art (and traveling), Andy Warhol: Retrospective, 1996, p. 13). Thus in the summer of 1963 there could not have been a more perfect alignment of artist and subject than Warhol and Elvis. Perhaps the most famous depiction of the biggest superstar by the original superstar artist, Double Elvis is a historic paradigm of Pop Art from a breath-taking moment in Art History. With devastating immediacy and efficiency, Warhol's canvas seduces our view with a stunning aesthetic and confronts our experience with a sophisticated array of thematic content. Not only is there all of Elvis, man and legend, but we are also presented with the specter of death, staring at us down the barrel of a gun; and the lone cowboy, confronting the great frontier and the American dream. The spray painted silver screen denotes the glamour and glory of cinema, the artificiality of fantasy, and the idea of a mirror that reveals our own reality back to us. At the same time, Warhol's replication of Elvis' image as a double stands as metaphor for the means and effects of mass-media and its inherent potential to manipulate and condition. These thematic strata function in simultaneous concert to deliver a work of phenomenal conceptual brilliance. The portrait of a man, the portrait of a country, and the portrait of a time, Double Elvis is an indisputable icon for our age. The source image was a publicity still for the movie Flaming Star, starring Presley as the character Pacer Burton and directed by Don Siegel in 1960. The film was originally intended as a vehicle for Marlon Brando and produced by David Weisbart, who had made James Dean's Rebel Without a Cause in 1955. It was the first of two Twentieth Century Fox productions Presley was contracted to by his manager Colonel Tom Parker, determined to make the singer a movie star. For the compulsive movie-fan Warhol, the sheer power of Elvis wielding a revolver as the reluctant gunslinger presented the zenith of subject matter: ultimate celebrity invested with the ultimate power to issue death. Warhol's Elvis is physically larger than life and wears the expression that catapulted him into a million hearts: inexplicably and all at once fearful and resolute; vulnerable and predatory; innocent and explicit. It is the look of David Halberstam's observation that "Elvis Presley was an American original, the rebel as mother's boy, alternately sweet and sullen, ready on demand to be either respectable or rebellious." (Exh. Cat., Boston, Op. Cit.). Indeed, amidst Warhol's art there is only one other subject whose character so ethereally defies categorization and who so acutely conflated total fame with the inevitability of mortality. In Warhol's work, only Elvis and Marilyn harness a pictorial magnetism of mythic proportions. With Marilyn Monroe, whom Warhol depicted immediately after her premature death in August 1962, he discovered a memento mori to unite the obsessions driving his career: glamour, beauty, fame, and death. As a star of the silver screen and the definitive international sex symbol, Marilyn epitomized the unattainable essence of superstardom that Warhol craved. Just as there was no question in 1963, there remains still none today that the male equivalent to Marilyn is Elvis. However, despite his famous 1968 adage, "If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings" Warhol's fascination held purpose far beyond mere idolization. As Rainer Crone explained in 1970, Warhol was interested in movie stars above all else because they were "people who could justifiably be seen as the nearest thing to representatives of mass culture." (Rainer Crone, Andy Warhol, New York, 1970, p. 22). Warhol was singularly drawn to the idols of Elvis and Marilyn, as he was to Marlon Brando and Liz Taylor, because he implicitly understood the concurrence between the projection of their image and the projection of their brand. Some years after the present work he wrote, "In the early days of film, fans used to idolize a whole star - they would take one star and love everything about that star...So you should always have a product that's not just 'you.' An actress should count up her plays and movies and a model should count up her photographs and a writer should count up his words and an artist should count up his pictures so you always know exactly what you're worth, and you don't get stuck thinking your product is you and your fame, and your aura." (Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again), San Diego, New York and London, 1977, p. 86). The film stars of the late 1950s and early 1960s that most obsessed Warhol embodied tectonic shifts in wider cultural and societal values. In 1971 John Coplans argued that Warhol was transfixed by the subject of Elvis, and to a lesser degree by Marlon Brando and James Dean, because they were "authentically creative, and not merely products of Hollywood's fantasy or commercialism. All three had originative lives, and therefore are strong personalities; all three raised - at one level or another - important questions as to the quality of life in America and the nature of its freedoms. Implicit in their attitude is a condemnation of society and its ways; they project an image of the necessity for the individual to search for his own future, not passively, but aggressively, with commitment and passion." (John Coplans, "Andy Warhol and Elvis Presley," Studio International, vol. 181, no. 930, February 1971, pp. 51-52). However, while Warhol unquestionably adored these idols as transformative heralds, the suggestion that his paintings of Elvis are uncritical of a generated public image issued for mass consumption fails to appreciate the acuity of his specific re-presentation of the King. As with Marilyn, Liz and Marlon, Warhol instinctively understood the Elvis brand as an industrialized construct, designed for mass consumption like a Coca-Cola bottle or Campbell's Soup Can, and radically revealed it as a precisely composed non-reality. Of course Elvis offered Warhol the biggest brand of all, and he accentuates this by choosing a manifestly contrived version of Elvis-the-film-star, rather than the raw genius of Elvis as performing Rock n' Roll pioneer. A few months prior to the present work he had silkscreened Elvis' brooding visage in a small cycle of works based on a simple headshot, including Red Elvis, but the absence of context in these works minimizes the critical potency that is so present in Double Elvis. With Double Elvis we are confronted by a figure so familiar to us, yet playing a role relating to violence and death that is entirely at odds with the associations entrenched with the singer's renowned love songs. Although we may think this version of Elvis makes sense, it is the overwhelming power of the totemic cipher of the Elvis legend that means we might not even question why he is pointing a gun rather than a guitar. Thus Warhol interrogates the limits of the popular visual vernacular, posing vital questions of collective perception and cognition in contemporary society. The notion that this self-determinedly iconic painting shows an artificial paradigm is compounded by Warhol's enlistment of a reflective metallic surface, a treatment he reserved for his most important portraits of Elvis, Marilyn, Marlon and Liz. Here the synthetic chemical silver paint becomes allegory for the manufacture of the Elvis product, and directly anticipates the artist's 1968 statement: "Everything is sort of artificial. I don't know where the artificial stops and the real starts. The artificial fascinates me, the bright and shiny..." (Artist quoted in Exh. Cat., Stockholm, Moderna Museet and traveling, Andy Warhol, 1968, n.p.). At the same time, the shiny silver paint of Double Elvis unquestionably denotes the glamour of the silver screen and the attractive fantasies of cinema. At exactly this time in the summer of 1963 Warhol bought his first movie camera and produced his first films such as Sleep, Kiss and Tarzan and Jane Regained. Although the absence of plot or narrative convention in these movies was a purposely anti-Hollywood gesture, the unattainability of classic movie stardom still held profound allure and resonance for Warhol. He remained a celebrity and film fanatic, and it was exactly this addiction that so qualifies his sensational critique of the industry machinations behind the stars he adored. Double Elvis was executed less than eighteen months after he had created 32 Campbell's Soup Cans for his immortal show at the Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles in July and August 1962, and which is famously housed in the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In the intervening period he had produced the series Dollar Bills, Coca-Cola Bottles, Suicides, Disasters, and Silver Electric Chairs, all in addition to the portrait cycles of Marilyn and Liz. This explosive outpouring of astonishing artistic invention stands as definitive testament to Warhol's aptitude to seize the most potent images of his time. He recognized that not only the product itself, but also the means of consumption - in this case society's abandoned deification of Elvis - was symptomatic of a new mode of existence. As Heiner Bastian has precisely summated: "the aura of utterly affirmative idolization already stands as a stereotype of a 'consumer-goods style' expression of an American way of life and of the mass-media culture of a nation." (Exh. Cat., Berlin, Neue Nationalgalerie (and traveling), Andy Warhol: Retrospective, 2001, p. 28). For Warhol, the act of image replication and multiplication anaesthetized the effect of the subject, and while he had undermined the potency of wealth in 200 One Dollar Bills, and cheated the terror of death by electric chair in Silver Disaster # 6, the proliferation of Elvis here emasculates a prefabricated version of character authenticity. Here the cinematic quality of variety within unity is apparent in the degrees to which Presley's arm and gun become less visible to the left of the canvas. The sense of movement is further enhanced by a sense of receding depth as the viewer is presented with the ghost like repetition of the figure in the left of the canvas, a 'jump effect' in the screening process that would be replicated in the multiple Elvis paintings. The seriality of the image heightens the sense of a moving image, displayed for us like the unwinding of a reel of film. Elvis was central to Warhol's legendary solo exhibition organized by Irving Blum at the Ferus Gallery in the Fall of 1963 - the show having been conceived around the Elvis paintings since at least May of that year. A well-known installation photograph shows the present work prominently presented among the constant reel of canvases, designed to fill the space as a filmic diorama. While the Elvis canvases...

Oil on canvas realized by Marco Fariello in 2022. Certificate of authentivity by the Artist. Excellent condition. Do you know yourself? This painting takes place around this the...

Created in the spirit of Christmas, this painting irradiates the positive energy of the season as well inspires strength, love, courage, and happiness. Painting Ships in a well-prot...

"No Hay Nada Mas" is a 31in x 43in original oil painting by Katherine Fraser in a handmade wood frame. Artist Statement // Life often strikes me as a string of moments, like a serie...

"Visions of Johanna" is a colorful summertime portrait of nude woman swimming in the backgrounds and posing in the foreground. Nick Weber (b.1971), living ...

Malika is a bright and provocative painting that narrates the story of an extraordinary female character who thrives in the spotlight. With her undeniable talent and charisma, she c...

This artwork is a wonderful portrait of grace and elegance, capturing the essence of boundless beauty and uniqueness of cultural heritage. The subject, a stunning black Yoruba girl i...

In his work, Tetteh condenses the internal sentiments and tensions of his characters and focuses them, using the eyes as the outlet for expression. In this way his subjects become in...

At first glance, "The Goddess" invites viewers into a world of grace and poise. The central figure, the young woman, serves as the focal point of the artwork. Her refined and intrica...

Tanvi Pathare Her Ascent 190 x 100 cm Oil on Canvas Born and brought up in Mumbai,India, Tanvi Pathare showed a growing interest in Fine Arts since a very early age. Encouraged by family,she began her art education at the prestigious Sir J.J.School of Art in Mumbai and received her Bachelors in Fine Arts(Painting) with outstanding grades,topping the University. After being allured by the Realistic tradition of painting from nature, Tanvi applied and was Accepted At the Florence Academy Of Art, Florence, Italy(FAA). Here she was honored By the Best Painting Of the Year from the Intermediate Studio of the School among other awards. She taught in the Academy in their Sculpture Drawing Studio.She was awarded for her Outstanding Performance in Art in her final academic year. Tanvi presently works in her private studio in Florence while continuing to be an instructor in the Academy’s Drawing...

This figurative painting titled "Representative" is an original artwork by Lauren Rinaldi made of oil on canvas. This piece measures 48"h x 60"w. Rinaldi’s new series was inspired by the feminist debate on how women's appearances are constantly judged, criticized and dissected; often done so with the intent of diminishing their work and contributions. This issue is prevalent in all industries, but especially in the very public and important realm of politics. Throughout mainstream media, Rinaldi found countless examples of coverage depicting what a female politician was wearing and why it was deemed “inappropriate”, rather than discussing their policies. Typical of Rinaldi’s practice, most of the works found in Representative are not classic portraits, but zoomed in studies of the subject’s legs, shoes and body from the neck down. By doing so, the work focuses on the experiences and outside societal forces that these women, and women like them, have faced. To create the works in Representative, Rinaldi used sourced photographs of female politicians that felt meaningful and powerful to her. Before painting or drawing, Rinaldi manipulates each image through cropping, elongating or changing its composition, background and color. Color is especially important in Representative, as it is an expression that is frequently rejected or criticized in politics by men. Rinaldi uses vibrant jewel tones and color swaps, like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s jacket from black to fuchsia, to represent the bold new ideas and diversity these women are bringing to United States politics. While Rinaldi does not specifically name any of her subjects, viewers will be able to recognize familiar leaders from across both sides of the aisle. Visitors will see snippets of stories through these works, like Former First Lady Michelle Obama’s sparkly boots...