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Timothy Rees,
The Bribe, oil,
57 x 48”T
his past April, the Portrait
Society of America
honored the 24 finalists of
the International Portrait
Competition at the 21st
annual The Art of the Portrait conference
held in Atlanta. All the award-winning
works were on display at the conference,
where attendees could meet and talk with
each finalist and hear the announcement
of this year’s Draper Grand Prize winner,
artist Seth Haverkamp for his outstanding
portrait Mars Rising. In my recent conver-
sations with the finalists, we spoke about
the powerful symbolism in their works
and the thoughtful inclusion of certain
objects and motifs, from brightly colored
paper cranes and broken dolls to the subtle
detail of a downward gaze or a door that
can never be closed.
In his winning work, Mars Rising,Haverkamp portrays his 8-year-old son,
Caspian, standing shirtless with his back
to a mirror and holding a delicate string
of paper cranes. “The original concept was
just to do a life-size portrait, but as I began
placing extra elements into the painting, it
morphed into playing with the underlying
theme of peace and how that concept
seems impossible to realize,” Haverkamp
explains. “This painting is more than a like-
ness; it’s a reflection on the world we live
in today. The symbolism of peace carries
through, but it’s fragile, just as Mars’ façade
was as the Roman god of war.”
The fragility he mentions is evident in
the broken string of cranes that have fallen
to the floor by his son’s feet. There is an
ancient Japanese legend that says the gods
will grant one wish to any person who folds
1,000 origami cranes. It was believed that
the crane could live 1,000 years, which isAward winners from
the 2019 International
Portrait Competition
are finding symbols
for the moment.
B Y
KRYSTLE
STRICKLIN