apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Not so much - I'd rather have Black and White photographs or traditional painted portraits.

Kind of a mix of Warhol, Alex Katz and Chuck close with a digital remake. Not all that original, and likely to fall out of style quickly, but at least technically they're well made. Its always way better than the usual "your portrait in oils based on a photograph".

I too feel like this will soon be dated. I'd rather have a traditional, realistic style, but let the styling cues of the subject, the body language and background modernize it.

Since when are actual works of art dated?

This is sort of cute, but it's dangerously close to "your face immortalized in fruit stickers. "

For a truly beautiful and modern portrait artist please check out this website...

http://www.annmarshallart.com

No, the pixellated looks scare me a little. I'm sure the technique is there, I really like Chuck Close's work, for example. These people are too happy, they've just sat for a series of photos, smiling, and everyone who comes to their house is going to have to look at their giant heads. This is not to speak of people who use their living room walls to record their children's growth and the portrait sitting packages at Sears they had a coupon for, but the examples really remind me of those kinds of people.

Perhaps that is what "those kinds of people" like and enjoy living with? Sometimes things are just cultural. That said, I think it's interesting that someone is using a hand-done technique to create something that looks like a computer did it.

I'd like to know what her process is. At first glance I would guess that she takes a photograph and applies digital filters to pixelate the image, then paints it on canvas by hand. I would rather have the digital image printed rather than painted, since the handpainting just adds the cost of labor. The method she uses removes any of the fluidity and liveliness that free-flowing brush strokes convey. Creating something by hand that a computer can produce in seconds seems like a backwards process.

I realize that these things are a matter of taste, but these are not at all a style that I would want in my home.

The best portraiture, in my opinion, takes an ordinary moment and transforms it into something monumental through the techniques of art, lighting, posture, color, etc. (see John Singer Sargeant)

This, on the other hand, reproduces the worst of digital photography. It takes what should be beautiful and transforms it into something even more mundane than the original. Not good.