Gwenn Seemel

Ellis Island Pilgrim (Bosnian-American, Dino Bajagilovic)

So the next few artists I am going to look at are portraiture artists. I like people's faces and especially when there are good, interesting stories behind them and behind why the artist chose to paint them. Gwenn Seemel is the artist I'm going to focus on in this post, and she definitely has some interesting stories behind her portraits!

This Looks Like A Job For A Chicano! (Mexican-American, Luis José Rivas)

 According to her site, Seemel does commisioned portraits as well as pieces that are part of a collection. One of her collections is a result of contemplation of her past, heritage and America. She says on her site that because of her residence in France and connection with other countries, she was not able to identify at first with the pilgrims that came to America. Then she realized that they shared the immigrant identity. So for this collection she focused on different Americans and asked them to define what it meant to them to be an American.

Liberty (French-American, Self-Portrait)

Of course I also LOVE the use of color and brush strokes in her paintings. She gives the people in her paintings such character. I can become so uptight about my paintings-- I only want to use the colors that are normal to the subject matter and that I see. It scares me to use such bold colors that aren't precisely what I think I see. Also the brush strokes are so bold, and I realize that mid-painting it probably did look weird and took til the end for it to come together. Maybe some day I'll challenge myself to try that. ;)

Pat and Eleanor

Here's an example of her commissioned portraits. I love how you can really see the personalities of the ladies in her depictions of them! -->

http://www.gwennseemel.com/index.php

-Maria