Posted By Bryan Rindfuss on Wed, Jun 2, 2021 at 12:06 PM click to enlarge Carmen Cartiness Johnson,
The Octagon Room, 2021, Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60”, Courtesy of the artist Given that it’s as old as the hills, including the ones in ancient Egypt, portraiture might not seem like an apt vehicle to convey contemporary ideas. But the age-old tradition has evolved continuously eschewing self-aggrandizing displays of power, wealth and beauty to become a wildly adaptable storytelling device. “The most famous portraits have this static sense to them. The point of painting the portrait wasn’t necessarily presenting this huge, broader narrative,” explained Jacqueline Saragoza McGilvray, curator and exhibitions manager at Blue Star Contemporary. “But a lot of these portraits Dutch portraits, English portraits, the Mona