Скачать или смотреть The Face Of God Collaborative Painting

The Face of God is my largest Collaborative Portrait Painting in many ways. Firstly, in a physical sense. The huge canvas had to be physically constructed and stretched and took many tubes of paint to ‘cover’. Since I am a portrait artist, it is also my largest work due to the many faces which constitute the composition of this massive portrait. Usually, my artworks are portraits commissioned by a parent, to paint their children. Until now, my record is a painting of four siblings on one canvas, but since we are all children of God I chose to limit the number to twenty-five, or I’d still be painting. Typically, children come to my art studio and paint their own, expressive background, after which I take a few weeks to paint their faces over this to create their portrait. The result is an artwork which truly belongs to the child and is, in a way, a reflection of themselves. The Face of God presented an opportunity to make something so much bigger, the face of God reflecting through the faces of children, with warmth and joy.

Pastor Mark Dean asked for a painting of Jesus with His children, but not in the traditional sense, instead from a side profile with a focus on the children. We decided to get the children of the Church involved. They posed for photographs, which I used as a reference while painting and together, they, themselves painted the background. With many volunteers we transformed the Train Station Sunday School classroom into an art studio wherein the children could be free to express their creativity with their own unique, individual brushstrokes and even fling paint onto the canvas. After that, the large canvas was carefully transported to my studio, where the figures of Jesus and the children took shape, as well as seven hidden symbols from Christianity. Can you find them?

The talented videographer, Micahl Wyckoff created a short documentary on the making of the painting. Be sure to take a look!