Portrait of a girl, oil on canvas, 2021

Painting this portrait has been a sort of a challenge, as I’ve worked mostly using photo documentation. The Covid quarantine prevented me to paint the sitter in my studio. Yet it has been at least a bit easier as I do know the sitter pretty well.

This time I’ve decided to go with a classical approach, obviously made my way, but still with great similarity of the sitter, taking in consideration the question about the narrow line between achieving big similarity vs finding the most striking painting language. Talking about resemblance meaning not just painting correctly in matter of physical proportions yet even more achieving resemblance in psychological sense. Of course they have to coexist both, the resemblance and the authenticity of the painting language. But then sometimes the painting process would further into the direction away from keeping similarities with the chosen sitter. As for my part, I am always on the side of pure painting investigation and wouldn’t mind sailing in the field of language of the colors, textures, lines and patterns for the sake of resemblance. Yet it is even better as long as I can track both objectives equally, like here in this portrait.