Portraitists at the National Portrait Gallery

Katie O'Hagan writes: 

"I painted Life Raft in 2011, during a time of great personal upheaval. During this period, I came to truly understand, for the first time, the vital role that art plays in my life. As most of the solid ground I had depended on seemed to erode away, my art emerged as the only thing keeping my head above water. I woke up one morning with this image in my head. I built the raft myself and spent the next couple of months completing the painting. It's a very literal image, and I felt quite exposed and not entirely comfortable making it at first. Now I see it as something positive to come out of a bad situation. It also marked a turning point in my work, as it has led to a move toward more personal paintings, beyond the straightforward portraiture I was doing before."

Vincent Giarrano writes: 

My work [`City Girl] is about real life experience, painting the beauty that I find in contemporary life. I combine classic and contemporary elements to reflect history and also what life is like now. This is present in the subjects I paint as well as how I've chosen to paint them. My subject for this piece is Amanda Leigh Dunn, a stylish young woman living in New York City. I wanted my painting to resonate as a sincere representation of her lifestyle and character.

Jason Hanasik writes: 

"I asked Sharrod to re-create a durational salute--something he learned at a mock boot camp during his summer vacation--for my video camera one winter afternoon. He agreed and stood, staring forward, saluting a superior 'ghost' for the better part of twenty minutes. At the end of the take, exhausted and fatigued, Sharrod turned slightly, while still holding the salute. I suddenly realized that my interest had more to do with the relationship of the salute to mimicry than the durational exercise. 

As the sun set, we did two more takes of him spinning, slowly, 360 degrees while attempting to maintain the salute." 

I realized somewhere between shooting and editing the footage that the military salute was, in many ways, a male equivalent of the endlessly spinning ballerina nestled in the jewelry box so many of my (female) childhood friends had sitting on their dressers.