Famous Modern Portrait Artists and Their Passions

There’s a mash up of traditional portrait painting in the modern artistry today. The genre has evolved over the years with the factors of different eras and civilization period to be considered. Portrait artists over the years have developed their own styles where some also painted their own self portraits. The styles may have varied but most were a blend and mash of the past with only a slight twist of the present and revolving times. Materials used in the traditional portrait painting have also changed. Paint that can dry faster and easier methods have been implanted on the portrait, though some may argue this has made the paintings less valuable, simply because less work goes into the painting in the first place. Modern contemporary artists are trying to make a name for themselves in portrait paining. This of course varies with the artists theme to begin with and the artist’s passion and as a result earning them respect by their fans and the industry.

Contemporary Portrait painters

Laren Brevner — Lauren is a contemporary portrait artist who blends contemporary painting with Japanese art of styles. She is famously known for painting women’s portraits on wooden panels where she uses a combination of materials to achieve her end result. The materials may include oil, resin pieces of Japanese paper, shimmering gold leaf and acrylic paint.

Kehinde Wiley — He is famously known for painting the former US president, Barrack Obama’s portrait. Kehinde replaces mo dern day people of color with white aristocracy. His portraits feature people who pose like important people of the society with floral patterns and a textual surrounding which presents their culture.

Suzi Nassif — Suzi is an upcoming portrait artist who is based in Dubai and is famously known for having marvelous works of art. She is famously known for winning the Leonardo D Vinci Art Awards for her black and white portrait. Black and white was one of the first styles of portraits painted traditionally and depicting it in modern style and doing it well shows how talented Suzzi Nassif is. She is even known for the Nude Sur –Reality that is usually loved by a segment of people who understand it. Her pieces and other forms of her work can be found on her website.

Amy Sherald — Amy’s sense of artistry grew popular especially in Baltimore where she resides. Her work presents the challenges of African Americans shedding a light on what was left out or forgotten through history. Her views are that there are usually other sides to African American people that are not represented. Sherald’s work was well indicated in the Michelle Obama portrait she did, her Iinstagram page also samples her best pieces.

Frans Smitt- Frans is a South African artist who transforms the 13th -17th century European portraits into abstract oil paintings. His works are considered to blur the lines between portraiture and street art, because they have the known elements from a traditional portrait but their identity are usually distorted with splatters of paint and textual swirls.

Yasutomo Oka — as the name suggests this Japanese artist is seriously unique that her portraits look like captured photographs. This is because Yasutomo uses real models as the starting point to his work then ends up creating idealized depictions of them. His ideal and unique work captures every detail of the model such as their soft skin, flowing hair and textual clothing.

The above mentioned artists are unique in their own right and way, and that’s what in my book makes them the most revolutionized artists of our era.