The Kingston Prize

The Kingston Prize, Canada's National Portrait Competition and Exhibition, has returned for 2023.  I'm honoured to have one of my portraits included in the exhibition of the thirty finalists from across the country.

Artist Statement:

This close-cropped portrait of my reluctant model, spouse, and pandemic inmate, is a depiction of a person present physically, but simultaneously distant.  As I was composing this painting, I was thinking of nineteenth century portraits of people reading.  The difference is that a phone, unlike a book, is a portal to the entire world and as much as it offers to its holder, it excludes from those nearby.  The pandemic has been the ultimate excuse for staying in our own little solitudes.  I wanted to deny the return of a gaze in this painting, not to enable a voyeuristic opportunity but to comment on how someone so near can be so far away.

The show runs from October 6th to the 27th with a reception and awards presentation on the 13th at the Firehall Theatre 185 South Street, Gananoque, Ontario.

https://Kingstonprize.ca

Near Yet Far (detail) finalist in the Kingston Prize 2023