Portraiture. Pictures of people poised and posed as the artist sees them. Within a vociferous culture of image, self image, social credit, virtue signalling, personal ID and code switching artists reflecting on personhood have the opportunity to challenge what is a 'real' person within an increasingly virtualised existence. It is possible to live socially and economically through a persona completely unrelated to a physical body and in such case what would a 'real' portrait look like?
Objectification in art and portraiture is a murky topic because anyone depicted in a painting is at the whim and talent of the painter, male or female. The idea of redressing this imbalance is somewhat opaque. One could legislate that we should burn all paintings didn't please the depicted, but one of the values of art is that it conveys truths as seen by the artist. Suggestive, uncomfortable, overlaid with preconceptions and hidden revelations it's the unexpected depth that marks great portraiture. The bold challenge of this exhibition is how these artists are entering into this discourse. More than creating laborious selfies they are looking, like all portrait painters, to find the essence of the sitter, to depict the detailed substance of existence that speaks beyond the surface and to the soul of being.
