Swap meets, flea markets, yard sales, thrift stores, abandoned storage units—it’s remarkable where old family photographs can turn up, especially considering how personal they are to family members to then be offered at discount prices between stacks of scratched vinyl and old copies of Lifemagazine.
Boating, oil on canvas, 30 x 24”Kevin Mizner can appreciate the tragedy in these photos. How they once had homes, and now are picked through by strangers. And yet, he also sees another chance to give these images life again. “They are very much discarded photos. Maybe some antique dealer bought them at a yard sale and they end up in a pile somewhere. No one wants them. They are old relics and nobody cares,” he says. “I think of it as history, and I love history. These are people that existed for that moment in time when someone clicked a camera, and then the moment went on without them. They live on until they find their way to me.”
Mizner brings them back to his studio and studies the faces, imagines the lives they lived, what they were doing moments before and after the camera clicked, and maybe where the pictures were taken. The Maine artist will paint the image in black and white, but with one figure in color. He calls the series Continuum.He will continue the series in a new show opening June 1 at RJD Gallery in Romeo, Michigan.
Gone Fishing, oil on canvas, 30 x 36”
Mizner says that many of the images start in black and white, but some are in color when he finds them, which is rarer the further back into the past he goes. Although the general composition of the photos and the settings is usually the same in the paintings, Mizner will change elements of the images, including faces and background elements. “It can be challenging draining a color photograph of color, or adding color to a black-and-white image. As long as I can see the subtle variations of light and dark, that’s all that is important,” he says. “I have to carry that into the painting when I choose which part will be in color. It has to be as real as possible so there’s no disconnect from the color portion and the black-and-white portion.”
Emerald Dress, oil on panel, 24 x 30”
Little Sister, oil on canvas, 30 x 40”
The artist is aware that many, if not most, of the people he is painting have long since passed. In many cases, their heirs may have passed as well, which is how the images get separated from families. He hasn’t yet met anyone who knows one of his subjects, but hopes it happens. “I would love that. I do know the identities of some of the people in the photos. Some had the foresight to write their names on the back,” he says, adding that several photos came from a diary he acquired. One painting to emerge from that diary is Boating, showing three women in a boat on a lake. “When I was first coming up with the idea for the series, I was looking through a photo album I had. There were no studio portraits, nothing formal. It seemed like someone was just playing with a camera because everyone was more casual and fun. In Boating you can see that—the laughing, the fun these girls were having. The through-line in many of the works in Continuum is that there is usually one person who is acknowledging the camera. You can see the color figure in Boating looking at you. You can almost feel a connection as she poses through time.”
Picnic Party, oil on canvas, 36 x 48”
In Judgment Zone, Mizner adds his own narrative to the painting with the title. The women seem to be scanning the room and maybe commenting on people they see. “I did stray from the straight black-and-white rendering. The photograph itself had no people in the background; they are all freshly created,” he says. “The two ladies talking are possibly gossiping about people they are looking at. When I was painting it, I simply wiped off the highlights and let the darks show through. It was more organic and wasn’t really planned, but it turned out.”
Aida and Agnes, oil on canvas, 24 x 18”
Mizner views the series as an amplification of the source material. “I love history, and these images are offshoots of what happened yesterday,” he says. “I see human beings in time.”
“Kevin Mizner’s works let us grasp that those that came before us led lives filled with the same emotions and passions that we possess, but theirs are often lost to hazy memories and fading black and white photographs,” says Joi Jackson Perle, RJD’s gallery director. “The joy is rediscovered and brought to life through his artworks as he melds the timeless elegance of monochromatic imagery with a splash of vivid color. In Continuumwe are reminded that the beauty and fullness of life lies not in the color or absence of color but in the richness of daily living and shared experiences.” —
Judgement Zone, oil on canvas, 24 x 24”
RJD Gallery 227 North Main Street • Romeo, MI 48065 • (586) 281-3613 • www.rjdgallery.com
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