Portraits
“Abstraction at the edge of the figurative. Music, statement, name, enchantment. Or, in his portraits, abstraction embedded in the face, the gaze: to see the mind, the music, in that face. The sense that by looking you are now inside the paintings. Gestures in the lines, risen from the memory of past gestures; a kind of writing, recognition. It all comes down to the staging of light, unsteady edge, incantation. No telling what will emerge once you enter.”
—Jason Weiss (writer and editor)
— Click each image to enlarge —
Portrait of Robert Ashley, new music opera composer
Oil & enamel on linen, 22″ x 18″ / 56 x 46 cm.
Portrait of Marlon Brando
Oil on linen, 22″ x 18″ / 56 x 46 cm.
Portrait of Dylan Thomas
Oil and collage on linen, painted in Paris, France — collection of Alexander U. H. Schubert; Bochum, Germany
Portrait of John Cale (detail), co-founder of the Velvet Underground
Oil and collage on linen, painted in Paris, France — collection of Alexander U. H. Schubert; Bochum, Germany
Portrait of Martha Graham, mother of American modern dance
Oil & enamel on linen, 18″ x 22″ / 46 x 56 cm. — collection of Ella Kogan & Joseph Lebovich; Fair Lawn NJ, USA
In Memoriam, Maria-Salome Rodriguez
Oil on linen, 32″ x 24″ / 81 x 61 cm.
Portrait of Galina
Oil on linen, 18″ x 22″ / 46 x 56 cm.
Portrait of Kurt Weill, German opera and theater music composer
Oil on linen, 22″ x 18″ / 56 x 46 cm.
Portrait of David Thomas, founder of avant-rock band Pere Ubu
Oil on linen, 18″ x 22″ / 46 x 56 cm.
Portrait of Kip Hanrahan (at the 11th Street Studio, NYC), founder of American Clavé Records
Oil on linen, 28″ x 35″ / 71 x 89 cm. — collection of Nancy Weiss Hanrahan; Reston VA, USA
Portrait of Don Pullen, jazz pianist/composer
Oil & enamel on linen, 22″ x 18″ / 56 x 46 cm. — collection of Keith Pullen; Passaic NJ, USA
“Seems that in all the years since I gave up realism in favor of my own personal abstraction, I’d never surrender my fancy for painting portraits. I attribute being good with likeness to brushwork speed, working wet into wet, always aiming for an expression unobtainable with photography. I notice how each portrait shown here reflects upon my approach to the abstraction I was working on at the time. For example Portrait of Robert Ashley (on this page), held side by side with Agnus Dei or the Diptych (both on the collage page) show that they’re one and the same palette.
“It was good having met the music personalities featured who posed for me, capturing what they to me personally mean: Hanrahan’s often use of half-light and darkness in his lyrics, Pullen’s awareness as he sat at the piano, Ashley’s calm whisper, Thomas’ words of travel, inspiring ‘Obsessions’ (featured on Recent Works 1) … These are a few of many who corrupt and inspire what I must destroy and recreate. It’s always excited me so to be the painter amongst my peers who work by other means, with other tools, but who maintain a similar reflection on society.”
—Ritchard Rodriguez
Below: Three Studies for a Self-Portrait — oil on linen, each panel 22″ x 18″ / 56 x 46 cm.
