"The Artist's Corner..."

"Richard"

Oil on canvas

Heather Gourlay Conyngham

from a series of works entitled, "Being Human"

What I Like About This: Here we have a well executed figurative portrait of an "everyday man."  The subject is easy to look at, he's middle-aged, not a chiseled example of super masculinity, but the type of man one sees everywhere, just normal, and that's appealing.  I think female artists are somewhat more adept at capturing the reality of maleness without embellishing that which needs no improvement. There's nothing wrong with imposing physiques and the virile blush of youth upon a man's cheek, but often such images in art tell a truth that doesn't really exist and unlike this work, they don't have the power to connect on a level of empathetic understanding and that's a huge part of one's ability to appreciate art for the sake of art.