Every year, thousands of artists from coast to coast and around the globe submit their artwork for entry into the Portrait Society of America’s International Portrait Competition, with the hopes of being selected as one of a handful of talented finalists. For many artists, the highlight of being selected is the chance to display their work at the annual The Art of the Portrait conference, where friends, family and fellow artists come together to celebrate their success and behold the winning artworks up close. Sadly, this year the global coronavirus pandemic has prevented us from safely gathering to view and judge the 2020 competition winners and their works. However, with a separate and new online event planned for August, the original 2020 conference program and competition winners will move forward to the 2021 conference, which is scheduled for May 6 to 9 in Washington, D.C. So, while we wait ever so patiently (or not) to be at arm’s length with each other again, the silver lining is that we have an extra year to highlight the incredible paintings, drawings and sculptures created by this year’s 23 finalists. From California to Maine, and from Canada to China, this group of finalists represent some of the world’s most talented portrait and figurative artists working today.
Brittany Ryan, Midwest Mermaid, aqua resin, 31 x 14 x 14"
From the West Coast, Annie Murphy-Robinson, Olga Krimon, Oliver Sin and Brittany Ryan are all California-based artists with their homes and studios spread from Sacramento to Laguna Beach.
Ryan’s sculpture Midwest Mermaid, made of Aqua resin and oil paint, is one of four sculpture works in this year’s competition, and is a whimsical portrait of a young, bikini-clad woman sporting a pair of orange buns, with her hands placed gently behind her back. The sculpture, Ryan says, “investigates the beauty and psychology of people in transition from childhood to adulthood, as we become socially aware of the judgement of others and are finding our place within a social group.” She explains, “I have placed [her] in one of the most vulnerable positions we commonly put ourselves in, a bathing suit.” The work is part of a series in which Ryan portrays young women in gestures and poses that go beyond the common representations of sexuality and beauty. An active member of the Laguna art community, Ryan teaches sculpture at the Laguna College of Art and Design, where she earned her MFA in 2010.
Born in Hong Kong, but living in San Francisco for over 30 years, Sin is a truly global artist, whose charcoal portrait Dad was drawn as a gift for his father’s 85th birthday. A graduate of the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, Sin has been teaching for the university since 2001, and has recently published his first instructional book, Drawing the Head for Artists. On drawing his father’s portrait, he remarks, “Since moving to the United States 30 years ago from my native Hong Kong, I haven’t spent too much time with my dad, so drawing him was an unforgettable experience for us to reconnect.”
Pavel Sokov, The Sadhu at the Holy Manikarnika Burning Ghat in Varanasi, oil, 30 x 20"
From the California Coast to the Midwest and beyond, this year’s finalists also include Anna Rose Bain in Colorado, Timothy Rees in Arizona, Thomas Caleb Goggans in Tennessee and Stephanie Paige Thomson in Indiana. From Wichita, Kansas, artist Ernest Wood is one of many first-time finalists this year, with his large multi-figural painting More than Material. According to Wood, the work “is a portrait of our collective humanity being drawn up and out of materialism—a return to our unique dignity as soul-bearers.” He explains, “We are not solely what we make, be it good or ill, though it heaps about us. This image of restoration is filled with elements of hope, loss, despair, ruin, redemption and fortitude.” The three figures who modelled for the work are friends of the artist and members of the Wichita community. “Devin Roberts, the male subject, is a personal trainer, model and dancer, and Jane and Maggie Neill are Ugandan-born sisters, also residing in Wichita, who enjoy school, church and spending time with their other siblings,” says Wood. Full of emotion and symbolic details, the work offers a complex portrait of humanity.
Scott Burdick, Serenity, oil, 60 x 30"
Ernest Wood, More than Material, oil, 44 x 32"
Jumping to the East Coast, three of this year’s finalists call North Carolina home. Louis Carr, who is one of the founding artist of East Oaks Studio based in Raleigh, and husband-and-wife team Scott Burdick and Susan Lyon, who live and work in the rural foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Burdick’s painting Serenity is a richly colored portrait of a young Native American girl named Serena, who is half Choctaw and half Ponca and lives near Oklahoma City. Burdick first met and painted Serena for a demonstration at the Prix de West at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, and has since developed a close relationship with Serena and her family. “For me, a portrait is a collaboration of artist and model,” Burdick says. “I spent time at Serena’s grandmother’s house near Shawnee and did several charcoal portrait drawings of Serena from life. On breaks, we’d take some photographs outside in the regalia she and her grandmother had created, which is what I painted later in the studio for this full-sized portrait. I’ve done several other paintings of Serena, as well as her family members. It’s especially fun seeing them year after year and painting them as they grow up.”
Louise Weir, Claudia in a Scarf, plaster with oil paint, 20 x 14 x 14"
Other East Coast winners in the United States include Julie Bell in Pennsylvania, Joseph Daily in New York, Morgan LaPlante in Massachusetts and Olena Babak in Maine.
Among this year’s international finalists are two artists from Canada: Vancouver-based sculptor Louise Weir, with her sculpture Claudia in a Scarf, and artist Pavel Sokov, who was born in Russia, but immigrated to Montreal, Canada, over 20 years ago. Sokov’s painting The Sadhu at the Holy Manikarnika Burning Ghat in Varanasi features an Indian holy man, or sadhu, in a painting that was inspired by Sokov’s two-month trek across India with a friend in early 2019. “Our last destination in the North was Varanasi, a city that is considered holy for its burning Ghats,” Sokov says. “The Manikarnika Burning Ghat is the most famous of these Ghats, where bodies are cremated at all hours of day and night. In Hinduism, death is considered as a gateway to another life marked by the results of one’s karma. It is believed that a dead human’s soul attains moksha, and hence breaks the cycle of rebirth when cremated here. Thus, scores of the elderly from across the country seek to walk up to its edges, and spend their last days absorbing the charisma of the Ghat making death painless and insignificant to be pondered upon.” This portrait of the Sadhu is part of Sokov’s Stories of The World series, in which he focuses on painting members of traditional cultures encountered through his many travels.
Oliver Sin, Dad, vine charcoal on paper, 17 x 14"
Other international finalists include, Frances Bell in England, Cesar Orrico in Spain and Paul Newton in Australia, as well as Konstantin Zhulin in Russia and Fengshi Jin in China.
As I look over this list of winners, who are spread out across the world, it reminds me that the Portrait Society is truly a global community of artists, always moving forward together. After the many struggles of this year, it will be even more rewarding to reunite with this incredible community and to see the full display of competition artworks at next year’s conference. —
Stricklin, guest writer for the Portrait Society of America, is a PhD candidate in the history of art at the University of Pittsburgh. She specializes in American art, photography, and the visual legacies of war and empire. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the history of art from Florida State University.
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