Patrick Earl Hammie
Instagram: @patrickearlhammie

Patrick Earl Hammie is an American artist and storyteller. His current series, Counterpoint Project, is an ongoing collaboration with dancer and choreographer Endalyn Taylor. In 2018 Taylor and Hammie worked with six ballerinas, a clothing designer, a documentarian and Memoirs of Blacks in Ballet to present a public performance, panel discussion, website archive and artworks that highlight and reframe black ballerinas’ contributions to dance and visual culture.

The concept came to Taylor and Hammie after speaking together on a panel about mastery in the arts at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where they instruct dance and art, respectively. The two connected through their disciplines’ roots in European elitism, and how ballet and painting specifically have shaped each other for centuries. 

Hammie’s works are included in public and private collections including the JP Morgan Chase Art Collection.

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Vakseen
Instagram: @vakseen

Before becoming a realist painter and moving to Los Angeles, Vakseen was a multi-platinum music producer and songwriter. He is known for his Vanity Pop, collaged influenced paintings fusing elements of photorealism, cubism and fashion design into vibrant abstract portraits. Vanity Pop is a celebration of personal identity, luxury, excess, insecurities and vulnerability. His intention as an artist is to present a dialogue with the viewer and bring across the impact of pop culture and consumerism. Creating art that ignites discussion, captivates the senses and most importantly questions the value placed on the superficial is his primary objective.

Vakseen’s paintings have been exhibited in museums and fine art galleries worldwide. He was recently interviewed by the BBC. He currently has several portraits and paintings available from 33 Contemporary Gallery, or you may visit his website at www.vakseenart.com.

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Heather Brunetti
Instagram: @heatherbrunetti

Heather Brunetti, a representational figurative artist currently living in Louisville, Kentucky, describes her technique as scrubbing and scribbling without any grandiose brushstrokes capturing a moodiness in her subjects. Her intent is to spark curiosity, wonder and familiarity from the viewer.

Her fine art portraits have been finalist in the inaugural International Biennial Portrait Competition in 2019 at the Wausau Museum for Contemporary Art, and a finalist in both the 14th International ARC Salon and 2019 Portrait Society of America’s Members Only Competiton’s Outside the Box category. She has exhibited her paintings across the United States and abroad. Find her oil paintings and portraits at 33 Contemporary Gallery in Chicago and at Artsy.

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Kathrin Longhurst
Instagram: @kathrinlonghurst

Kathrin Longhurst is a figurative realist painter residing in Australia. She has been preoccupied for many years with themes of female empowerment and the women’s movement. Her latest body of work, Still Standing Strong, is breaking away from the imagery of dominant, confident, powerful women and instead the women in this series are still adorned by symbols of a male hero culture—military jackets, pilot outfits, helmets and goggles—but their poses and gestures are lacking the aggression and anger of previous works. Her models in this series are reserved, defensive and contemplative. 

Longhurst served as the vice president for Portrait Artists Australia and was the founder and director of the innovative Project [504], an art space in Sydney. She is represented by Flinders Lane Gallery in Australia where her upcoming show will be exhibited.

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Patrice Robinson
Instagram: @patdowart

Patrice Robinson is a representational painter who currently is working in Brooklyn, New York. Her emotional subjects are depicted by using heavy brushstrokes in oil on wood panels. She gains inspiration from her personal experiences by exploring themes of duality and the juxtaposition of lightness and darkness. Her paintings focus on the complex psyche of her subjects by using negative space and the cropping of the figure. Her intent is to illustrate feelings of displacement in terms of the physical and the spiritual investigating why anonymity and distance seem to surround some people. Furthermore, her portraits explore whether our histories, culture and physical bodies define in society. The narrative of her work asks if it is habitual to anchor ourselves to people, places, ideas and objects or if it is instinctual. 

Her work is available from 33 Contemporary Gallery and directly from her studio.

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Aixa Oliveras
Instagram: @aixa_oliveras

Aixa Oliveras is a contemporary symbolist painter who creates narratives based on her own personal cultural experiences. Her oil paintings are in the realm of classical realism where she pairs figures with patterns and colors. She is inspired by the symbolist and art nouveau art movements, as well as the color and vibrancy of Puerto Rico, which is her birthplace. Currently she is working on the idea of rebirth and identity. Through the combination of these pictorial elements, she creates a visual narrative into the nature of femininity, transformation and identity.

Oliveras holds a Master of Fine Arts from Laguna College of Art and Design and a BFA (magna cum laude) from the School of Plastic Arts and Design of Puerto Rico. Her work may be found at 33 Contemporary Gallery, Chicago, as well as other fine art galleries.

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Grant Gilsdorf
Instagram: @gg_paint

Grant Gilsdorf is an emerging figurative painter living and working in Columbus, Ohio. While it is difficult to place his work in the lane of a singular genre, his paintings combine elements of realism, symbolism and portraiture in a uniquely spellbinding way. He creates personally and spiritually authentic work while refusing to concern himself with genre limitations. His paintings are contemporary amalgams rooted in pre-abstract tradition often methodically borrowing elements from traditional portrait painting, symbolist painters, American realism painters and modern cinema. However, one entity that remains constant throughout each of his work is the ability draw the viewer in and remind them of the dynamic experiences of life: fragility, resilience, fear, isolation and self-actualization.

His work is found at RJD Gallery, Abend Gallery, Gallery 1261, 33 Contemporary and other fine art galleries.

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Victor Wang
Instagram:  @victor_wang_art

Growing up in Northern China and a graduate with a BFA from the Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts, one of three top art institutes in China, Victor Wang found his way to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a visiting scholar and earned his MFA in Fontbonne University. He currently lives in St. Louis, where he teaches painting, drawing and graduate critique classes as a  professor at Fontbonne University. The subjects of his paintings are vehicles to convey the human experience, representing the emotional tension and psychological drama of turning points in life. When viewed closely nostalgia, harmony, passion, agony, sadness and pleasure are revealed in his heavily brushed artwork mostly provoked from his childhood memories and past experiences.

He has exhibited widely, and his art is found in various fine galleries including Duane Reed Gallery and 33 Contemporary.

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Alessandro Tomassetti
Instagram: @sosayssandro

In his bold paintings of contemporary men, figurative painter Alessandro Tomassetti combines his naturalistic rendering style with a tenebrous palette and dramatic lighting to create works that are at once seductive and subversive. Rather than presenting his male subjects as mythological heroes or captains of industry, Tomassetti paints to reveal their vulnerability and sensitivity. From the pose and styling to the glints of light and reflection captured in his brushwork, Tomassetti’s work manifests an intimacy most often seen in paintings of female subjects. By eschewing historic expectations, where men were typically viewers of such portraits rather than the subjects, Tomassetti’s oil paintings invite the viewer to explore and appreciate shades of contemporary masculinity outside of the norm. 

He lives and works from Barcelona, Spain, and is represented by RJD Gallery and 33 Contemporary.

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Irvin Rodriguez
Instagram: @irvinrodriguez

Born in the Bronx, New York, in 1988 and graduating from FITNYC with a BFA in illustration, Irvin Rodriguez’s oil paintings are inspired by the European Masters and influenced by the aesthetics of contemporary figurative art. He was a recipient of the 2016 Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant, the 2019 John F. and Anna Lee Stacey Scholarship and the 2019 Donald Jurney Travel Fellowship, which enabled him to travel to Europe to study painting and art history in numerous museums and cultural institutions. In 2011, Rodriguez was the Golden Brush Award winner for the 27th L. Ron Hubbard’s Illustrators of the Future Contest. 

His work was exhibited at Sirona Fine Art in Florida, and currently his paintings are available from various fine art galleries via Artsy. He currently resides in Hoboken, New Jersey. 

More Portrait Artists to Follow

Yunior Hurtado Torres: @hurtadopinturas
Sarah Muirhead: @sarahmuirheadart
Brianna Lee: @briannaleefineart
Joshua Suda: @joshuasuda
Lucas Bononi: @lucasbononiart
Arina Gordienko: @arina_gordienko_art
Shawn Michael Warren: @warrenart
Erin Milan: @erinmilanart
James Needham: @jamesneedhamart
Shana Levenson: @slevenson
Anna Wypych: @wypychanna
Hilary Swingle: @gingerbee
Donna Bates: @donnabatesart
Riley Holloway: @hollowayfineart
Narelle Zeller: @narellezeller
Sharon Sprung: @sharonsprung
August Burns: @augustburnsart
Stephen Mangum: @stephenmangumart
Felice House: @felicehouse_art
Tereza Barnard: @terezabarnard
June Stratton: @june_stratton
Tanya Atanasova: @tanya_atanasova_visual_arts
Claudia Kaak: @claudiakaak
Troy Jones: @troyjonesartist
Shelah Horvitz: @shelah.horvitz
JuliAnne Jonker: @juliannejonker_fineart
Madelyn Sneed-Grays: @artworkbymadelyn
O’Neil Scott: @oneilscott
Jesse Lane: @jesselaneart
Terry Stickland: @terrystricklandart
Anne-Marie Zanetti: @zanetti_art
Scott Hutchison: @scotthutchisonart
Daggi Wallace: @daggistudio
Jessica Lewis: @jessica.lewis.art
Daevid Anderson: @aendi
Carlos Gallostra: @carlosgallostra
Nanette Fluhr: @nanette_fluhr
Holly Bedrosian: @bedrosian.art
Chris Herrera: @chrisherreraart
Anne-Christine Roda: @annechristineroda
Eric Johnson: @ericjohnsonartist
Monica Ikegwu: @monica165
Tanja Gant: @tanja.gant
Nicole Moné: @nicolemonefineart
Sara Scribner: @scribnerspaint
Marianna Foster: @foster.marianna.art
Nicole Finger: @fingerpaintingart
Brooke Hunter: @brookehunterart
Pegah Samaie: @pegahsamaieart
Michael Hlousek-Nagle: @michaelhlouseknagle
Ray Allen Parker: @rayaparker
Joshua Dean: @the_joshua_dean
Judith Peck: @judithpeck
Shana Wilson: @shanawilsonartist

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About the Author

Didi Menendez is a Cuban-born American publisher and curator. She is a pioneer in the online publishing arena since 1998. Her literary journals and magazines have been recognized by the Pushcart Prize, Best American Poetry and other anthologies. She has placed many artists in prominent art collections and has exhibited artists in museums worldwide, most recently at the MEAM in Barcelona celebrating International Women’s Day simply titled Painting Today, 2019. You may find her at www.poetsandartists.com.

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