As Others See Us: The Contemporary Portrait
The need to connect with others begins when a baby gazes up at its mother. We need to know and be known, and to be remembered. Portraits, by depicting another human being, seize our imagination and compel viewing in a way no other genre can. The individual captured in a portrait is presented in a manner that compels us to ask, Who is this person? What is his/her place in the world? What is his/her spirit?
Although the portraits in this exhibition differ from each other materially—they are painted, drawn, or sculpted; they are made with canvas, board, paper, Mylar, oil, acrylic, watercolor, pencil, ink, charcoal, pastel, collage, print, fabric and thread, stone, plaster, resin, and video—they all ask, in a profound way, What is it to be human?
These artists reveal their sitters, and themselves, to the viewer, in a huge variety of ways. For instance, a portrait is not always about face. A number of artists use only a fragment of their subject’s physical being (a braid, a posture, a gesture) to embody their model’s totality. Others omit physical representation almost entirely. Can a person’s essence be portrayed without a face? How does an artist capture a lifetime of experience? What symbolism is embedded in the artwork that affords us insight into the life of the sitter… the artist… ourselves?
Dawn Chan, Linda Rubinstein, Mara Williams, Curators
Click here to download the gallery brochure for this exhibit. (PDF, 11×17, double-sided)
Artists featured in As Others See Us: The Contemporary Portrait:
Sigmund Abeles
Cicely Aikman
Robert Bauer
Thomas Bayrle
Sarah Belchetz-Swenson
Derek Bell
Tamy Ben-Tor
Scot Borofsky
Stephen Brown
Ric Campman
Tseng Kwong Chi
Dana Clancy
Chuck Close
Susanna Coffey
Merry Converse
Judy Cooper
Jim Dine
Robert Sargent Fay
Rachel Folsom
Lucy Fradkin
Natalie Frank
Gloria Garfinkel
Gregory Gillespie
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
John Hampshire
Haley Hasler
Susan Hauptman
William Hays
Mary Henerson
Christopher Irion
Adam Jacono
Noah Kalina
Alex Katz
Nikki S. Lee
Nina Levy
Whitfield Lovell
Jane Lund
Jill Magid
Sarah McEneaney
Dave McKenzie
Gloria McLean
Marion Miller
Sharon Myers
Laurel Nakadate
Alice Neel
Charles Parness
Marlo Pascual
Leonard Ragouzeos
James Riek
David Rohn
Jonathan Rose
Brian C. Rossignol
Deidre Scherer
Shirana Shahbazi
Cindy Sherman
Cai Xi Silver
Zak Smith
Frank Stout
Jane Sutherland
Mickalene Thomas
John Thomlinson
Christine Triebert
Hellen van Meene
Costa Vavagiakis
Sarah Wentworth
Clifford West
Kehinde Wiley
Robin Elizabeth Williams
Don Wynn
Cayce Zavaglia
Major support for As Others See Us: The Contemporary Portrait is provided by Chittenden Bank and the Vermont Arts Council. Additional support is provided by Bast Investment Co., Brattleboro Area Realty, Lawton Floor Design, Peerless Insurance, Pieciak & Company, and Vermont Country Store.
The exhibition was conceived by the curatorial team of Rachael Arauz, Susan Calabria, Dawn Chan, Linda Rubinstein, and Mara Williams. Early in the conceptual process, independent curator Lori Friedman and BMAC exhibition committee co-chairs Petria Mitchell and Carolyn DiNicola-Fawley provided guidance and support.
