Jennifer Oldis-Kryczka

Alex
Oil on masonite
(Finalist, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution)

“People. We are a complicated, inspired, diverse, haunted, gifted,
disabled, disciplined, perpetrating, effected, affected, joyous, broken,
enlightened, suffering, consuming, entitled, changing, unknowable
species.

We are formed by our Intrinsic natures, but also molded by our
experiences, evolving into an always different form of ourselves.
I capture a moment, but also reveal traces of the subject’s past– while
suggesting the infinite possibilities of who they may become in the
future.

Who are you today? Who were you ten years ago? Who will you be in
15? How have the people in your life evolved? Affected history? And
who will they become?

I develop my portraits slowly, building thin layers of oil deposited over
time. Through this process I explore the color relationships and forms,
and encounter—and hopefully reveal—the inner essence and potential
of the subject.” — Jennifer Oldis-Kryczka

Read an interview with Jennifer Oldis-Kryczka at Voyage Chicago