|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
)
Sam McKinniss
"True Love"
“True Love” is a series of portraits of the artist’s own friends, acquaintances and lovers.
“The name, ‘True Love,’ is sort of tongue-in-cheek,” McKinniss says. “Actually, I could have called this collection ‘Perfect Failure,’ because each painting is a record of a failed attempt at true love, a failed attempt at capturing a moving, changing subject.”
McKinniss, who lives in Hartford, attempts to create in the viewer an intense sense of desire for the person portrayed.
“In traditional portraiture, the artist gazes lovingly upon his subject,” he says. “In fact, there’s a sordid history of artists taking advantage of their subjects. Klimt, for example, had his subjects pose nude, and painted clothing on them later.”
“I flip that the other way,” he continues, “by requesting that the subject gaze at me as if seducing me.”
“I want viewers to experience this seduction, too,” McKinniss adds, “and to desire these paintings intensely. In that way, the viewer and I connect in our experience of the subject.”