Finalist
If portraiture is about identity, my portraits are about how identity is fabricated; that is, in our Facebook world, how an identity is largely an act of presentation: visible in the ways we appear or describe ourselves— race, class, and sexuality, and gender—and shaped by what a particular culture deems acceptable. Identity, then, varies constantly as we prepare ourselves for different publics. My work explores the presentation of selves that we call “the portrait.” In this respect, the portrait means what it shows: the craft of the work, the individual’s presentation. The portrait Room and Board is central to two series of my work: Work Drag represents portraits of people dressed in their work clothing/gear; Serial Paintings is a series of the same subject painted repeatedly; the changes across the series reflect notions of the individual while undercutting any sense of a permanent identity.