portrait of minji 2017

Aaron Nagel made this portrait of Minji with oil paint, sometime around now. Nagel’s got a tight, almost photographic way of working, but look closer, and you’ll see the paint handling is actually pretty loose, with thin layers building up this incredible likeness. I find myself thinking about the way the light falls across her face – that bold stroke of white-yellow, thick enough to catch the light in the room, that defines her cheekbone. It’s like Nagel's built her face up from light itself. I can almost feel the pressure of the brush, the way he loaded it with paint. The process is clear, even though the image is so polished. It’s not unlike John Currin’s portraits, the way he captures a kind of heightened reality. Both of them show us that painting is not just about representation, but about making a world, constructing a way of seeing.