The Artist_s Magazine 2016-03__

36 http://www.artistsmagazine.com

M

Y BODY OF WORK consists of paintings

derived from my life in Bloomington,

Ind. A desire to paint my neighbors

and colleagues grew naturally out of this com-

mitment. In portraiture, I am attracted to peo-

ple with domestic or social connections, such

as a couple in a romantic relationship or people

from the same family. I feel there is an inherent

magnetism in these situations and, in the case

of a parent and a child, there is often a physical

resemblance.

A complicating circumstance I have set for

myself is that I paint these pieces from life or

from painted or drawn studies done from life.

Working within this immediacy without an

intervening i lter like photography is important

to me. I think of my eye and consciousness as a

funnel into which the world is poured and from

which judgments about color, space and shape

emerge in the form of a painting.

h ere may be a bit of voyeurism in this

window I’m af orded into people’s lives, some-

thing akin to what happens in the i lms of

Alfred Hitchcock. I have placed myself in the

role of recorder, but I believe poetry lurks in

this l at-footed accrual of information.

Project Proposed

h e most elaborate of these portraits so far is

my painting of the Ksander Hicks family. Yael

Ksander is an arts reporter for the local National

Public Radio ai liate associated with Indiana

University (IU), and her husband, Glenn Hicks,

also works in the media i eld. At the time he

was posing for the painting, he was a camera-

man for our public television station. h e paint-

ing includes their children Jarno and Solveig, 8

and 11 respectively. Children are particularly

dii cult to paint; they’d rather be someplace

else—and who can blame them? My admiration

for Sargent only grows!

When I asked Yael to pose with her fam-

ily, she did not say yes immediately; she knew

what would be involved since she holds a master

of i ne arts degree in painting from IU and her

mother was an artist. Eventually, she and her

family did agree to pose. I think she felt the

children were old enough to get something from

the experience and the family would be spend-

ing time together in a way they’d all remember.

I decided to paint the portrait on a 5x6-foot

canvas—I wasn’t going to make this easy for

anyone! h e portrait, which required 28 sittings

of two to four hours each, took nine months.

Infl uential Works

I was conscious of working from a rich tradi-

tion. h e granddaddy of group portraits is Las

Meninas (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid)

by Velázquez. In one respect Las Meninas is a

portrait of the painter who seems to be paint-

ing the king and queen who, standing in the

position of the viewer, are rel ected in the

mirror at the far end of the room. h ey are

Story

Following his forebears, Velázquez, Degas, John Singer

Sargent and Fairfi eld Porter, an artist studies and records,

over a span of nine months, the dynamic of a family.

oƒ a Por t rait

BY TIM KENNEDY

TIM KENNEDY

received his bachelor

of fi ne arts degree

from Carnegie-

Mellon University

(Pittsburgh) and

his master of fi ne

arts degree from

Brooklyn College

in New York. He’s

a senior lecturer in

painting and drawing

at Indiana University

Bloomington, and

exhibits his work

regularly at First

Street Gallery

(New York City).

Visit his website at

timkennedypaintings.

com.