How Portraits make a difference:
Portraits, by their nature are a visual document. They can record history and have been used that way for centuries. But they also create mythology and tell stories. Ultimately they fall into the category of an ‘emotional truth.’ Characters within a mythology, like Gandolf, or Merlin (in his many literary incarnations), stand for ideas and hope that lead us through the darkness of the stories as we read or watch them.
My own portraits cross between both worlds – that of fiction and that of real life because many are based on specific individuals and therefore are historical in nature. But the stylistic way that I show people places them in a more fictional world. Others, like this rock climber, are on a mission we can all relate to. They really exist in our collective emotional memory – even if we’ve never scaled a wall like this.
