Imago Dei Portraits /  by Sean Oswald

Beatrice

 

When we moved to Texas in the winter of 2017, in many ways I felt that my art career was over. We had been living in Cincinnati and I was pursuing the academic art thing, painting, teaching, and showing work. We moved to Texas for my wife’s job and learned shortly after that she was pregnant. Like any sane person, I freaked out- decided to chuck the art career and pursue something sensible like insurance. Our landlord told us he could get me a job making a bunch of money starting next week and I decided that it was time to put away the brushes and grow up. The job happened as promised, but the money didn’t and there came this point where I began to sense that God was reaching out to me and asking me to start making art again. This came directly in the words of my wife when she asked, “would you rather keep working this insurance job, or would you want to stay home with the baby and paint?” The only work I could get at the time was of dog portraits, but they paid roughly the same as the insurance job. I called an old art teacher who I had apprenticed with and I told him, full of shame that I had been painting dog portraits after I had been a “serious artist” for the past however many years- during my MFA days and etc. He said, “you should never be ashamed to support your family with your talents and that doing dog portraits was honorable.” So I decided to believe him and I thought, I can do this.

In those first few weeks and months after Beatrice was born, I would nap her in our backyard studio and do drawings of her. This was one of the pieces and the re-awakening to the value of the portrait.

 

Margot

 

At the time, I met with our priest Father Lee Nelson, who’s portrait we will look at later, and he encouraged me to pursue portraiture more fully as a business and to create art and so I began pursuing opportunities to do that. Around this time, I met the Fish family and asked if I could paint a portrait of Margot, their eldest daughter. It was during this portrait, that my process of portraiture began to emerge- this was mainly due to needs of practicality. Before this point I was staunchly against the use of photographic images in the production of my work and worked solely from the live model, but life with a young baby and other contributing factors made this untenable, and thus a process was born.

It started with a question. Margot, is there something that you like doing that is very natural for you and could be the basis of your portrait? She responded that she needed to practice her cello and maybe that would be a good idea? It was. I came over to the Fish home, was served tea and then drew Margot as she practiced her cello lessons. Over the course of an hour or so, many drawings were worked up in pencil and charcoal, but it was obvious that the drawings would not suffice for reference material- and I began to take photos of her too. Through this process- it was apparent that Margot was self-conscious of being drawn for a portrait and she was performing, but after about an hour- she began to forget I was there and she had moments of self-forgetfulness and absorption in her cello practice. That first moment of it, was captured here in the charcoal drawing of Margot.

What I didn’t realize then, but looking back it makes sense, that this moment began the search for that illusive quality of the un-self-conscious, embodied, natural person.

Getting back to the studio and combing through the sketches and the photos, I was able to sense this moment again through the images and worked to develop a sense of this moment in the finished portrait, displayed here.

 

Portrait of Dr. Aly Barnes

 

            Fast forward now to a couple years later in 2019/2020 and I’m teaching drawing and painting again, now at Live Oak Classical School, and am back into my art practice and have an exhibition coming up and begin thinking through a series of portraits that I would like to do to include in this exhibition.

            The original idea was to draw and paint people who seemed to be living out their God given calling, or what I had come to title (for the exhibition) living out “Divine Irresponsibility.” The idea referred to a talk delivered by Fr. Washington Jarvis, former headmaster of Roxbury Latin to his students. In it he describes a person who is living out of a divine irresponsibility--referencing Satre’s “divine irresponsibility of the condemned man” as being a liberating force that has the potential to shift our perspectives and consequently how we live-- or as I would describe it, that they ceased to operate out of a materialistic mode of living and would be living seemingly irresponsibly according to the dictates of a materialistic worldview. Instead, they were living from a place of faith, where they had discerned something of their calling and we’re operating out of that. I wrote down a list of people that I knew and started working my way through it, Aly was the first person on my list.

            During the portrait sessions working with Aly in my studio, she started to teach me things, which is something she did without realizing it, and that is the moment that I tried to capture of her. It was during this session of drawing her portrait that I became aware of the idea that what I was searching for in this quest was what Thomas Aquinas calls intellectus, according to Aquinas, the intellectus is

 “…not here taken to mean the intellective power itself, but a particular habit by which man naturally knows indemonstrable principles in the light provided by the agent intellect… principles of this kind are known immediately once their terms are understood. As soon as one knows what a whole is and what a part is, he immediately recognizes that the whole is greater than the part. It is said to be intellectus from the fact that it reads within (intus legit) by grasping the essence of the thing.”

 

How I began to understand this in the portrait was a moment in time where the person was expressing a form of embodied knowledge, where they were bringing to bear in a temporal and prescient way their genius- or for the sake of the initial idea- their lived/corporeal divine irresponsibility.

            Getting to this point with a person, or with Aly or any of the sitters takes some time and I have found that it comes through a long session of prolonged and sustained effort- within the context of a prolonged craft. Meaning, that I could not get to this point without having been making paintings and drawings for a long period of sustained effort, nor could I get there in this particular instance without a long period of time with the person in the portrait session.

            Aly came to the studio with a set of books and papers that she was thinking about and writing about and when the portrait session started, she began by sitting in a chair and reading. Then she changed poses and started to write- I drew and took photos from all angles. Eventually she started to teach me. It wasn’t formal, we were just talking, but she began to ask me questions and illustrating ideas, and while she was doing that I noticed something, she had ceased ratio(as Aquinas would describe as…) and became very natural and integrated within herself, as if it were as effortless as breathing. It was that moment that I knew I was looking for. I started drawing and taking photos again but knew that I found it. The moment that I ultimately chose to portray was this moment, where she is looking off somewhere in her mind, yet present, but contemplative- you can see it in the aloofness from the eyes-she has just rested her head upon her hand that was, seconds ago animated and waving through the air illustrating her point- and there is this moment of a quiet satisfaction, joy, and contentment.

 

Other Portraits (Watercolors)

 

At some point during 2020, I became aware of the importance of portrait painting and drawing in a new way that I had not felt before. Ultimately, I began to think how precious people are and started to reflect on the how individual persons displayed the Imago Dei. Specifically, I began thinking about how the people who sat for me displayed the imago Dei and really, it was quite simple, but also profound. I once read this article about people who go to museums and cry in front of paintings- it’s happened to me a few times, the first time was when I saw the Tiepolo’s at the MET, I was awestruck by their beauty, but this was something of a different character. The story I heard was of a woman who went to look at a portrait, maybe it was a Holbein- repeatedly over the course of several years. She did not know this person in the portrait, and it wasn’t someone particularly important in the world’s eyes, but eventually this person would cry when looking at the portrait. They must have developed such a deep sense of empathy for this person through their painted image and the person became so prescient to them and spending time with the portrait was like spending time with the person and it affected them in some way to make them cry. I thought maybe the experience of spending time with the person while drawing them, both while they sat and then also while in the studio would reveal something about that person in a similar way and consequently how they imaged God.

 

Father Lee Nelson

 

A few things were revealed to me through this process, and it was brought to bear most fully upon reflection of the portrait of Father Lee Nelson. We went through the now usual routine of a portrait session. We met at the church, first he in vestment’s up at the podium, then in his office talking about John Henry Newman and G.K. Chesterton, then in front of the stained glass with the baptismal font. They were examples of some of his many offices as priest; as preacher, teacher, counselor, and baptizer. Eventually we ended up at the coffee shop, where he is known to frequent, and we had a casual conversation- this was another way I knew him to be himself. But it wasn’t until after the portrait was finished that I realized one of the important truths of portrait painting and the imago Dei. What I learned was that sometimes we see things about people that they cannot see themselves. And this showed me that the imago Dei was not just about the person being represented, but also about the representer.

 

When I picked up the portrait from Fr. Lee, he said something profound that illustrated this beautifully. He said, “thanks for taking it off my hands for a little while. It haunts me. I love it and I hate it, that’s how I know that you nailed it.” This reminded me of one of the difficulties of painting portraits- that is- that while painting a portrait, you are seeing a person, potentially in a fuller way, or at least in a different way than they see themselves. When we see ourselves the way that painting a portrait can (if the artist is true to their perception and not influenced by the expectation of the sitter to image them to themselves the way that they want to see themselves) then we see them as they are. When they see it, there is some friction, because something is shown that is hidden from the self-perception of the sitter and can be jarring. But the thing that the artist can do- is that when they see this person- they can love the person as they see them. I think this love of the person that is revealed through the seeing- and then imaged in the portrait, is part of what the Imago Dei in portraiture is. This reminds me of how God sees us. He sees us as these full persons, that we cannot see ourselves. We see this part of ourselves that we love and this part that we hide from ourselves and others, because we hate it. But when we are imaged by an artist, imperfectly of course, it is a small fraction of how God sees us and a reminder of how he loves us. And I think it can provide existential healing to trust that if others see us in a fuller way than we see and or love ourselves, that God sees us that way and more, and is imaged in us and loves us. But he chooses to be imaged in us.

We also learn to love the sitter as we see them. The image of God extends beyond the person that is being depicted and is expressed in the artist’s production of the portrait.  There is then a triune nature to the creation of a portrait that involves the sitter, the artist, and God.

From this, Questions that arose that I couldn’t and can’t quite answer. 1.) How could it be that creation of the portrait of a person could be filtered through the imperfection of the artist’s perception and translated through the imperfection of the artist’s hand, further the imperfection of the materiality of the tools (i.e., brushes and pencils, and paper, or canvas), and still image God? Further, could the artist abstract the image, or distort it intentionally and still honor the image of God in the person? Would anything but a perfect portrait- if there is such a thing- image God? If it is abstraction, does the artist do violence to the image of the person, or the image of God in the person?

Ultimately, I concluded that the artist cannot help but be limited by time, training, talent, tradition, imperfect perception, means of production, imperfect discernment in the process or creation, etc. There must be a way in which God images forth corporeally and temporally in the specific person’s that can allow for the imperfections and that He can be glorified and even imaged in these imperfect attempts. I like to take Picasso for example, as someone who would paint and abstract and even deconstruct the images of others, and he was no saint, and could he still be- without his knowing- be participating in the image of God as he created a portrait? That’s a question that I can’t quite answer, but I suspect- without being so bold as to be heretical- that the answer lies in the incarnation and with Jesus taking the nature of man into his divine nature and being united in the person of Christ. This ultimately to me is the justification for the inherent dignity and meaning of the person as showing forth the imago Dei, and also the justification for the artist to image forth another in portraiture and it creates the conditions for the reception-- by the artist- of God’s grace for his imperfection in depiction or even, possibly his abstraction through the will, and then finally it provides the justification for the creation of portraits.

Imago Dei Portraits- Father Lee Nelson /  by Sean Oswald

Here is the most recent portrait painting from the Imago Dei portrait series. This one is of Father Lee Nelson the Rector of Christ Church Waco, which is an Anglican Church in Waco, Texas. This portrait was completed from a series of photos and sketches done with Father Lee several months ago. Hopefully I can revisit more of the images later and see if there is another portrait to do. He has many facets to him and this is just one. I have images of him at the coffee shop in less formal attire, where he is having a coffee and chatting, which is another way that he operates in very naturally. Some of the images are of him preaching from the pulpit and this one is him with the full robes in front of the stained glass and with his hand on the baptismal fount. This will likely be the most formal of the portraits and is done with pastel on Sennelier pastel card at 18” x 24”. Thanks to Father Lee for the opportunity to do this portrait.

Abstraction and Figuration, Strange Bed Fellows, or just fellows? /  by Sean Oswald

When I was a kid, I was really obsessed with drawing and I wrote a lot of stories too. They were mainly drawings and stories of dinosaurs, or of my James Bond like character name “Johnny Kenabalo” (Ken-ob-elow). I copied alot of Star Wars drawings too, I loved the ones with the heavy black pen lines and the inked watercolor, like in the Star Wars dictionary. As I got older, I tried to draw more and more realistically and got better and better as time went on. By the time I was in high school, I was quite good at realism and even photo realism and could draw just about anything anyone asked me to draw. This was great in one way, but in another it was not so good. It wasn’t that good, because I became addicted in a sense to making things very realistic and I couldn’t imagine a drawing being good unless it was and I became very competitive and protective about this and so by the time I was in my college drawing classes, I felt as if every drawing was a competition to prove who could draw the best. During life drawing sessions I would walk around and look at all the drawings of the other students just to make sure I had the best drawings and if not, then I went back and made sure I drew even better and finished with the best drawing possible. You can probably see how unhealthy this was and how really it did me no good in making me a better artist, or a better drawer. It actually made me so stressed and miserable that I started to hate drawing. I was so competitive and upset and stressed out and angry and frustrated when I drew, because it became this performance where if I didn’t make the best drawing, or feel that I had the best drawing in the room, or in the school, or in the state, or in the world, in the history of western art, then why was I even doing this? This probably seems insane, and I think it is on some level, but this is where I got and made drawing, the thing I did incessantly since the time I was three became something that I began to hate. By my second year in college art, I was so miserable that I decided I didn’t want to be an artist and was going to figure something else out.

How does this relate to figuration and abstraction? When I was in 7th or 8th grade, I was taking an art course with some artists at the Toledo Museum of Art and I was drawing a picture of something minding my own business and remember this moment, when another student was making some abstract expressionist paintings. I thought this was ridiculous of course, because there could be no value to the scribbles of someone who did the same thing that a three year old could do and better, “because at least they were original and un-self conscious.” I scoffed as I looked at this students work and went back to my seat. Sometime over the next hour and a half, one of the other art teachers came in and asked that student to step out with him and I saw them talking in the doorway along with another art teacher and they were saying how cool this work was and really how advanced and brilliant it was. Well, they may not have said all that, but this is how my jealous middle school brain interpreted it.

Looking back, I think this moment likely derailed me in a sense and set me on a course of being skeptical and even somewhat hostile to abstraction. When I got to college and most of the arts faculty members were modernists and abstract expressionists in one sense or another, I felt that I had an axe to grind and that it was my job to somehow stand against this tide and to staunchly defend realism and Good draftsmanship. It wasn’t until almost seven years later when I was preparing for grad school, that the scales began to fall from my eyes. I was making traditional landscape paintings in the Oxford Ohio fall and I was so very bored one day while painting that I started to move my brush in a different way and started to use flat, thick paint with a palette knife. Feeling the paint move to the was beat of my heart was like lightning and it was then that I began to sense the value of abstraction.

When I got to the MFA program I was further confounded when at the start of my first year I started to make lots and lots of small abstract expressionist paintings. It probably all started when I went to visit my painting professors studio and saw the large abstracts that I think I was forever changed. I was “bit by the bug.” It’s so cliche when you hear it, but it really awakened something in me. It was funny to see then, that instead of the Caravaggio’s and John Singer Sargents that I thought would adorn my book shelf, it was R.B. Kitaj, and Hans Hofmann, Philip Guston, Matisse, the German expressionists, Marsden Hartley and probably most importantly Richard Deibenkorn.

As I worked in an abstracted and non-objective way, I slowly started to see that there was a limit to what I could say or contribute, at least personally with pure abstraction and I began to see symbols and figures come back into the paintings. In one particularly confusing critique, I asked my professor if I needed to figure out a way to combine the abstraction and figuration, to which he answered, “ I dunno” while shrugging his shoulders. He added, “maybe you combine them, or maybe you do both, or maybe that leads you to someday combine them.” He said all of this more like a question than a real answer. I did eventually find my way back to figuration and even very traditional motifs and pictures, but the abstraction has never left. That critique was almost nine years ago now. Since then I have had a bug to make abstract paintings and even at my most figurative and traditional, I still can’t ever find the motivation to make the full move into traditional painting. There have been so many times that I almost went to an atelier, but I don’t have the drive anymore.

I’ve found that I am most drawn to the artists who exist somewhere between abstraction and figuration or who moved in and out of abstraction and figuration, like Deibenkorn, Avigdor Arikha, Guston, Henry Moore, Kitaj, and David Hockney.

There is so much fertile ground here and it can be a place to mine. Abstraction is something that is truly an American art form and I dont’ know how to make art today without acknowledging it in some way, without that way being reactionary in some way. Abstraction is part of the dna of our artistic forms, but so is the figurative work of our western past and I cant see a way to move forward in painting without acknowledging that place either.

I know there are many people who wouldn’t even say there is a rub between abstraction and figuration and that all of it is resolved at this point, but I don’t see that. There has barely been enough time to mine it and it’s creative potential is large. For now, I will acknowledge the validity of both modes of expression and say that for me, I think I will probably make both abstract and figurative paintings, sometimes venturing far to one end or the other, but perhaps with an eye to synthesize them, or at least to baptize them.

Teach (me) to care and not to care /  by Sean Oswald

“Teach us to care and not to care”. From, Ash Wednesday by T.S. Eliot.

The first time I really began to think about this line from the poem, “Ash Wednesday” by T.S.Eliot, I was in confession with our priest Father Lee. (You can see a portrait of him somewhere in my blog or on my site, for reference.) This theme of to care and not to care is a difficult one for me and the onion bloom of my soul—as it peels back— I can see how it is slowly working deeper into me.

Last night, I was listening to a portion of “Bird by Bird” by Anne Lamott while I was trying to cook tacos for dinner, and my wife was on a run while my daughters played together in the backyard. In “Bird by Bird” she describes her Father as someone who was a writer and worked from home writing, and she thought of the other Dad’s she knew who went out to work as teachers and lawyers and in other traditional professions. (Though I shouldn’t say that a writer is not a traditional profession, because it, it just maybe isn’t PERCEIVED as a very respectable one for a man to hold.) Anyway, I began to feel increasingly discouraged as I listened to her describe her Dad, and I eventually felt so irritable that I had to turn it off. I suppose I was triggered. AS much as I hate the phrase “to be triggered,” or to admit that anything would “trigger” me it was quite noticeable that I was in fact being triggered and so much so that I shamefully turned off a good book on tape. I did this in part also to avoid yelling at my kids, while cooking and watching them, which was already something quite stressful, but alas I was indeed triggered and I turned off the iPhone.

Later that night after the kids went to bed, I confessed to my wife that I was feeling sorry for myself (another shameful confession) and she- like the angel of a wife that she is asked me to explain- and I told her how I had been listening to “Bird by Bird” and how Anne Lamott was describing her Dad’s profession and that I in turn felt like a “total loser.” She said, why do you feel like a “total loser?” I said, well she was describing her Dad and how he worked from home and didn’t have a traditional job and how he she thought of the other Dads and how they had traditional jobs where they went and “smoked” together in some teachers lounge or something and that I felt my life was very similar to theirs. And she responded with, well who said that you were a total loser and do you feel that her Dad was a total loser? I said, yes. He is a total loser and so am I. She asked, is that what the book says, or is this your interpretation? I answered, “well, the book didn’t say that, I suppose it’s my interpretation.” She said, “Yeah. The way I remember the book is that Anne Lamott speaks so highly of her Father and admires him and that this is part of why she is a writer. So, what is going on inside of YOU that you think he’s a loser and you are a loser by way of extension?” Well, I responded, I don’t actually think he is a loser at all, in fact I admire him, but the culture will think he is a loser and I have a very similar life to him and the culture will think I am a loser too. She said, well then you have made it impossible for yourself to win. You’ve tried to suppress your gifts as an artist in the past and just do “stupid jobs” to make money, like working in insurance and etc, and you were miserable and felt that you were missing out on your calling, and now here you are making decisions that align with your values and really making progress and you still feel like a total loser, because you perceive that the culture thinks you are a total loser. Yes. I responded, how do I change? How do I see myself differently? How do I get rid of these feelings and this inferiority? I want to feel that I’m a success and I am so damned competitive and I can’t compete with these people who just go out and work jobs to make loads of money, it doesn’t suit me and I’m called to be an artist and a teacher and a husband and Father and I work from home and I have a studio in the backyard and I paint pictures and draw portraits and how am I to feel good about myself? I feel like Mark Driscoll would think I’m such a damn mess. Hilary responds. Well you need to stop caring about what they think. I know I’ve said it before, but you just have to figure out who you should be listening to. Don’t your friends love you? Don’t you have people in your life who speak truth to you? Don’t your parents love you and support you? Don’t your daughters adore you and aren’t they happy that their Father is with them so much? I respond, Well, yes. Hilary- Well then you have got to figure out how to not care about what these people think.

So, here I am today praying that God would help me not to care about the wrong things and to be able to discern the difference between what I should really care about and what I must let go of. I’m not perfect and I’m not claiming that all my decisions are right. Of course they are not, but I am trying to hold onto the words of God and to claim them as my own. “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.”

Imago Dei Portraits - Rebecca Weller /  by Sean Oswald

I’ve created many portraits in my life and it is something that I feel quite grateful to participate in. Recently, I’ve felt the call to create more portraits than usual. It’s something that for me is a way to use my gifts as an artist to serve God and others. It may be one of the things that I find most directly as a service and I truly love doing it. Sure, it is difficult and it is actually work for me, but I find that it is a very good use of my time and that is blesses others and I feel that it does a worshipful respect to God to portray his children and show through them my love for humanity.

Here is the process to creating one of my recent portraits. It’s of my friend Rebecca Weller.

These first three are the preliminary portraits. I almost always start with lots of different ones and done in different ways.

The second block shows the actual piece as it developed from a drawing into layers of watercolor paint and water soluble carandache neocolours 2.

This is the final image of the portrait on watercolor paper and hanging in the studio.

Imago Dei- reflections /  by Sean Oswald

Sometimes when I’m working on an artwork, I will engage in a mental discourse where I begin asking myself a series of questions on the validity of the thing that I’m doing. As I work on portraits that conversation sometimes goes a little like this.

Q- “Why do you paint portraits?” A- “Well, I think that the human person is inherently dignified and it is valuable to take the time to attempt to accurately portray them.”

Q- “What makes them inherently dignified?” A- “God makes them inherently dignified. They bear the image of God as his unique creations amongst the created beings and when one paints or portrays a human being in portrait painting or drawing they are showing the person and God, a justified reverence.”

Q- “So, does the person need to be accurately portrayed in order to show them a proper respect? And if so, how accurate does the portayal have to be?” A- “The accuracy of portayal does not justify or disqualify the validity of the act of creating the portrait, but the attempt with a reverence towards the person and God’s creation is part of the validity. The person creating the portrait is engaging in an activity that is reverential, for it’s form is one to slow down and to appreciate the person and this process is intentional.”

Q- “So, what if, for example the person who portrays the portrait mutilates the portrait of the other as they create the portrait? Take for example some of the portraits of Picasso, or George Baselitz.” A- “One would have to define what is said and meant by mutiliate. For example one could say that to do anything but attempt total realism or naturalism and to achieve it would be the only way that one could properly dignify the person and avoid all human frailty in the portrayal. Anything that would deviate from this standard, that is impossible for the human person to do, would be in some ways a deviation or mutilation. The mutilation of the person would have to be a proper mutilation or act of violence against the image of the human person. An inaccurate portayal of the physical being is not necessarily an act of mutilation, but could just be an act of human creation. For example one could create an abstracted painting or portrait, or caricature and it could be a more accurate portayal than a realistic portrait and do more justice to the personhood of the sitter and thus be a better portrait, even though it is not as realistic or naturalistic. The naturalism or realism is not the thing that determines a good portrait, and neither is the lack of it an indication of mutilation.”

A pt.2 -“There must also be a human dignity to the image of God in the artist who is creating the portrait too. The artist is engaging in a form of the image of God by creating and the creative power is a derivation of God the Father and His creative powers. God the Father can create ex-Nihilo, but man cannot. He must create through corruptible means and materials and these faculties will not allow him to ever create perfectly, because he cannot escape the curse. Perhaps he will create perfectly in heaven, but even then it is likely he will create through means that are a derivation of the perfect God. Therefore it is a condition of being human that one must create imperfectly and thence it is a matter of degrees of excellence in ones artistic making. This is another matter, but has to do with more than the skill in making in the sense of a form of material manipulation. This goes back to the idea that one can create an abstraction, a realistic work, an impressionistic work, or something different in likeness and the form itself does not dictate whether or not it is better or worse, because the form itself can be a means by which a portrait is portrayed and the portrait is not dependent on the style to be justified as a good or bad portrait.

A pt. 3- “I believe it to be the portayal of the imago dei, or the image of God that is to be seen. A destruction of the image of God in the person is the violation. Though this is inseparable from the person. Each person displays that differently and through their subjectivity and so since the painting of a portrait is ultimately an act of collaboration, meaning that there is a sitter and there is an artist, thus the image of God and respect for the subjectivity of each person without the violation of either or of the image of God in either is what is to be desired.”

End of short discourse.