Portraits
"Blue"
By Lisa Kovvuri (oil on wood, 12” x 16”, 2019)
Lisa Kovvuri is known for her exquisitely crafted portraits. She explains her specialty:
“We human beings interact subconsciously through the way we're animated. We read expression, movement, and body language intuitively. This makes the human figure a highly effective tool for visual communication. It speaks on a level beyond what other subjects are capable of. To me, a portrait is more like a mirror than a likeness of an individual. It's a mirror of humanity, reflecting something of each of us within it.”
Born in Oakland, California, and raised on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Kovvuri graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art with a BFA in printmaking. She then studied oil painting with famed artist Nelson Shanks at his Studio Incamminati in Philadelphia, followed by over four years with Mary Minifie, an Art Renewal Center-designated Master.
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For more than 20 years, Kovvuri’s paintings have garnered numerous awards, including Best of Show at the National Oil and Acrylic Society’s Best of America exhibition in 2023 and Finalist status in the Art Renewal Center’s 16th and 15th International Salon Competitions in 2022 and 2020. Her art is found in private and corporate collections across the globe and has been featured in various art publications and exhibitions, including a solo show in 2017 at the Whistler House Museum of Art in Lowell, Massachusetts.
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Kovvuri is a Signature Member of The Portrait Society of America. She is represented by ArtNova in Chatham, Massachusetts.
Stephen Bauman is one of today’s most accomplished painters and teachers of classical realism. Born in Memphis and raised in Miami, Bauman was a graffiti artist in his youth. In 2003, he began studying at the renowned Florence Academy of Art, where he would later teach drawing and painting before serving as director of the Anatomy & Écorché Department for six years at the Florence Academy branches, first in Sweden and then in the United States.
In 2020, Bauman left Florence Academy to pursue his own art and teach online. He works in oil, graphite, charcoal, and watercolor. Among his most admired artists are Dagnan Bouveret, Jules Bastien-Lepage, and Andrew Wyeth. Bauman is represented by Grenning Gallery in Sag Harbor, New York.
The featured painting, Alone Together, was a Finalist in the Figurative category of the 9th Art Renewal Center’s International Salon, as was Bauman’s painting Daydreamer. In the 10th Art Renewal Center’s International Salon, his painting When I Was Young won First Place in the Imaginative Realism category as well as the Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine Award, while his graphite on paper, Other Voices, won Honorable Mention in the Drawing category. The next year, his graphite on paper End of the Night was a Finalist in the Drawing category of the ARC International Salon.
"Alone Together"
By Stephen Bauman (oil on canvas, 16” x 20”, 2012)
"Aida"
By Amy Werntz (oil on cradled panel, 8” x 17.75”, 2020)
Painter Amy Werntz strives to bestow “importance to the ordinary moments in everyday life.” In recent years, she has created an impressive body of work featuring older women, bringing dignity and value to those often overlooked in contemporary society. Through postures and expressions, Werntz conveys the figures’ emotions, and by limiting references to the setting, she encourages viewers to relate their own experiences to the painting. As she explains, “I would like for viewers to walk away feeling they have interacted with the person in the painting…”
Werntz’s art has already garnered impressive recognition. In 2021 she was a finalist in two prestigious competitions for emerging artists: the Second Bennett Art Prize and the Fifth Edition Boynes Award. In 2020, she won First Place in the Portrait/Figure category of the Richeson75 International Art Competition as well as a Certificate of Excellence and Signature Status from the Portrait Society of America. Her painting, Berg, was a finalist in the Figurative category of the 15th Annual Art Renewal Salon.
Werntz has participated in several solo and group art shows. She is represented by Valley House Gallery in Dallas and Sugar Lift in New York City.
Werntz’s interview with Boynes Art Award includes large images of her paintings.
"Robinson, Houndstooth"
By Mario Andres (watercolor, 14” x 20”, 2007)
The portraits and landscapes of Mario Andres Robinson evoke a sense of timeless beauty. Having studied at the renowned Pratt Institute in New York, Robinson was influenced by the art and techniques of European masters, such as Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Degas, as well as American realists, particularly Thomas Eakins and Andrew Wyeth. In the 1990s, he began to feature people of the rural South, depicting them in everyday settings.
Robinson is a member of the National Arts Club, The Salmagundi Club, and a Signature Member of the Pastel Society of America. He is the author of Lessons in Realistic Watercolor, and has been featured in leading art magazines. In 2006, The Artist’s Magazine placed him among the top 20 realist artists under 40 years of age.
Robinson is represented by Grenning Gallery in Sag Harbor, New York, Morton Fine Art in Washington, DC and Jonathon Cooper in London, England.
"Madonna of the Lost Souls"
By Katherine Ace (oil on canvas, 20 x 18”, 2018 )
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Artist Katherine Ace, who passed away on April 17, 2023, was one of the premier artists of the Pacific Northwest with a national following. Her figurative and still life paintings often referenced myth and fairytales or mingled nature and humanmade objects.
Originally from Chicago, she began painting seriously at age 14 and after graduating from Knox College (IL) in 1975 held various art-related jobs, notably as an illustrator of textbooks for Rorke Publishing and of composers for World of Music, published by Simon and Schuster. In 1990, she relocated to Portland, Oregon, where she spent the rest of her life.
Although Ace’s art is representational, she explained that her method was to “throw paint at the canvas and sculpt the surface using painting knives, nails, pins, bottle brushes—anything that is lying around—into the surface…” She said she was fascinated by dualities: “ecstasy and agony; humor and tragedy; natural and constructed realities; experience and news.”
A leading advocate for women in the arts, her 10-foot-wide painting of nine women artists of Oregon, including herself, is in the collection of the Portland Art Museum. She wanted to highlight the sense of community among the women artists as had been depicted for male artists in the past, such as in Henri Fantin-Latour’s A Studio at Les Batignolles (1870).
Ace’s work is represented by Woodside-Braseth Gallery in Seattle and Hidell-Brooks Gallery in Charlotte, North Carolina.
An informative, illustrated obituary for Katherine Ace appeared in the April 18, 2023, edition of the Oregon Arts Watch.
"Young Woman from Istanbul"
By Daniel Graves (oil on linen, c. 23.5” x 15.75”, 2004)
Daniel Graves is one of the most important figures in the revival of contemporary classical realism, having founded the prestigious Florence Academy of Art, which has trained hundreds of artists since 1991. In addition to being a revered teacher, Graves’ skillful paintings earned him the status of Living Master from the Art Renewal Center.
A graduate of the Maryland Art Institute, where he studied under realist artists Joseph Sheppard and Frank Russell, Graves continued his art education at the Villa Schifanoia Graduate School of Fine Art in Florence, Italy, and then apprenticed with Nerina Simi, whose father, Filadelfo, studied with Jean-Leon Gerome (1824-1904), one of the leading French Academic artists and influential teachers.
Graves teamed with fellow classical realist Charles Cecil to establish Studio Cecil-Graves in Florence, working together for almost a decade until each founded separate ateliers in 1991, the aforementioned Florence Academy of Art and the Charles H. Cecil Studios.
Peter Trippi, editor-in-chief of Fine Art Connoisseur magazine, wrote an in-depth article on Daniel Graves, which is reposted on “Realism Today.”
Of Australian Aboriginal (Kudjlat and Gangalu) and Vanuatuan heritage, Daniel Boyd’s art brings indigenous memories and perspectives to Australian colonial history. His great, great grandfather was enslaved to work in the cane fields of Queensland.
Boyd’s art includes sculpture, installation, and multi-media painting, often working from archival images. For his multimedia paintings—in oil, ink, charcoal, pastel, or watercolor—he uses a dot technique similar to Aboriginal dot paintings or Pointillism.
Boyd graduated in 2005 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Australian National University. In 2014, he won the Bulgari Art Award for his mixed media painting based on an archival photograph of a scene on Pentecost Island, Vanuatu. The next year, he was selected for the Young Artist Award from the Melbourne Art Foundation. In 2016, he was awarded a residency with the International Studio and Curatorial Program in Brooklyn, New York.
Boyd has had numerous solo shows, public commissions, and been part of several group exhibitions. His work is in several museum collections, including the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, and the Natural History Museum in London, as well as many private collections.
He is represented by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Sydney, Australia.
"untitled"
By Daniel Boyd (oil, ink, and archival glue on polycotton, 107” x 83”)
"Title unknown"
By Clement Mmaduako Nwafor
From Abuja, Nigeria, artist Clement Mmaduako Nwafor learned sculpture under Philip Nzekwe and painting under Oswald Uruakpa. Nwafor’s large-scale mixed media works are oil portraits that incorporate the colorful cloth of traditional Nigerian headwraps known as gele. In 2014, he won First Prize in the National Visual Art Competition at the National Gallery of Art, Lagos, Nigeria. In 2018, a feature article about his work appeared on “My Modern Met,” calling him a “rising star of contemporary African Art.”
Nwafor is represented by Alexis Galleries, Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria. He also maintains an Instagram page.
"Ntombi"
By Loyiso Mzike (oil on canvas, 2014)
Born in Butterworth (Gcuwa), South Africa, Loyiso Mkize graduated with a degree in graphic design in 2009 from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in Cape Town. He quickly gained fame as an illustrator of graphic novels, comic books, and brand campaigns for major corporations, such as ADT, African Bank, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. In 2015, he established his own visual arts and communication company, Loyiso Mkize Art, which published a popular South African superhero comic book, KWEZI, and expanded into animation.
Mkize began painting oil portraits in 2009. His large-scale works realistically convey the models’ emotions while often incorporating imaginative elements. Commissioned portraits have included of Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In 2017, his painting Gqama Ntyatyambo was nominated for Design Indaba’s “Most Beautiful Object of South Africa” award.
Mkize has had several solo shows, including at the Eyethu Gallery in Johannesburg and Eclectica Contemporary in Cape Town, and participated in group shows in New York and Dakar, Senegal. In 2019, his work was included in the “Still Here Tomorrow to High Five You Yesterday” exhibition at Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town.
Mkize is represented by Eclectica Contemporary in Cape Town, South Africa.
"Ajmal, Refugee from Afghanistan"
By Carla Crawford (oil, 2016)
While earning a degree in Studio Art and Italian at the University of California, Davis, artist Carla Crawford studied under Wayne Thiebaud (1920-2021), known for his brightly colored cakes and other common objects. Crawford’s love for classical painting was sparked in Italy while attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna and the Institute of Architecture in Venice.
Returning to California, Crawford briefly taught art in the Oakland public schools while honing her skills at The Atelier School of Classical Realism. Dedicated to becoming a fulltime artist, she moved to New York to study at Jacob Collins’ Grand Central Atelier. She now teaches parttime in the Graduate Fine Arts program at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.
Crawford paints from live models, spending many hours drawing, underpainting, and building layers of paint to achieve the classical realist look for contemporary people. She has won various grants, fellowships, and awards, including an Award of Exceptional Merit from the Portrait Society of America in 2016.
Crawford’s paintings have been displayed in the de Young Museum in San Francisco, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, and other galleries and museums nationally. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio, the Croker Art Museum in Sacramento, and the Museu Europeu d’Art Modern in Barcelona, Spain, the latter acquiring a portrait of her grandmother.
The featured painting of Ajmal, Refugee from Afghanistan is a portrait of an Afghani who risked his life translating for US Special Forces in Afghanistan. The painting was acquired in 2022 by the Butler Institute of American Art.
Crawford is represented by Winfield Gallery in Carmel-by-the-Bay, California.
"Remi"
By Alireza Shojaian (mixed media on wood, c. 32” x 26”, 2022)
Raised in Tehran, Iran, Alireza Shojaian graduated in 2014 with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts and painting from the Islamic Azad University. However, he was prevented from finishing a master’s degree because his thesis and final project was on “Queer Art,” nor was his art shown in Iran. With the help of a patron, he was able to move in 2017 to Beirut, Lebanon, where he had the first of two solo shows. Two years later, he was given asylum in France.
Shojaian works in acrylic, colored pencil, graphite, and digital. His (usually male) portraits are often nude or semi-nude and sometimes incorporate figures and creatures from historic Persian miniature paintings, as in the featured painting, Remi.
"Moonlight"
By Kerry Dunn (oil on panel, 20” x 20”, 2021)
Artist Kerry Dunn earned a degree in illustration from the Ringling College of Art and Design in 1999, then attended The Art Students League of New York before joining renowned painter Nelson Shanks in 2002 at his new art school in Philadelphia, Studio Incamminati, where Dunn is now part of the core faculty. He also teaches in workshops across the U.S. and via his Patreon page.
Dunn specializes in figurative work, using color, form, and line to express character, spirit, and a sense of narrative. The winner of several Best of Show awards, he was honored in 2012 as one of the “25 Artists of Tomorrow” by American Artist magazine. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions at Arcadia Contemporary, Gallery 1261, The Florence Academy of Art, Principle Gallery, the Salmagundi Club, Sugarlift, Stanek Gallery, and other galleries. His art has appeared in several publications, including the covers of American Art Collector (August 2013) and Art of the Portrait Journal (Fall 2013).
Dunn is represented by Sugarlift.
"Words of Wisdom"
By Bahman Pezeshkzad (watercolor, metal, and stone on paper, 14” x 11”, 2014)
