The Trio Sculpture

Sculpture: Acrylic and Resin on Other. "The Trio" was created in 2011 as part of a group of 10 pieces that appeared at Art Basel in Miami in 2011. This is a casting in resin molded from the original. It is sealed and painted with acrylic paints. "The Trio" is part of the "Tronie" series that I started in 2010. My 3-dimensional “Tronies” are not traditional portraits. Colorful, expressive, engaging and humorous describe these inventive concoctions of observation, imagination, and artistic style. In the later 16th and 17th centuries, a tronie referred to heads, faces, or expressions of anonymous people depicted in works that were not intended to be formal portraits but rather used as studies of interesting expressions or facial character. Frans Hals' painting 'Jester with a Lute', in the Louvre, is a good example of this genre, as are well known works by Rembrandt and Vermeer. My 21st Century tronies are informed by a lifetime of stored observations and arise primarily from my imagination. The original pieces are carved directly in Styrofoam then modeled over which softens and unifies them, then painted in an expressive manner. I challenge the cultural norms and standards of what is considered beauty. They are not idealized, not a pretty or handsome media face, nor a particular person; yet, they are somehow familiar. The viewer is free to make their own associations. I am influenced most by Marisol, Red Grooms and Dubuffet.