I was sitting in a day-long meeting in Shanghai, of all places, my mind whirling without discipline through my sketch book. I thought of doing a series of paintings of friends in the form of saints' portraits, like the pictures in books in my long-distant Catholic upbringing: men and women surrounded by their attributes and icons, sometimes with the instruments of their martyrdom still embedded in their heads. St. Jerome, for instance, always with his books, his red robes, and a placid lion.
Or St. Lucy, strangely proud of her gouged out eyes on a plate, her 'spiritual' eyes restored to her.
What would be the icons and attributes of my very secular friends? I made an initial list of people to paint, and a quick sketch of my friend Chris as an idea.
No comments:
Post a Comment