Artist Statement

Mug Shot
J. Schultz

Portrait- verb

An action word, to do. To stab the brush against canvas. For days, a vermillion red beneath my fingernails. High from turpentine. I love linseed oil. Alizarin crimson breaks my heart. To shake my fist at the sky when it does not work and to shake my fist at the sky when it does.

Can I slip by if I tell you, I paint portraits of people?

            Harmless…… Eyes, nose, mouth

Truth: is

The things I do on canvas have less to do with making art and everything to do with hooking up with people in their ether forms. The exchange is a conversation in paint. You wouldn’t believe what Anne Boleyn had to say after all these years! And quite a reverent sense of humor, that tiny, long neck of hers…even pointed the finger at my omissions which she insists are still lies…even if no one knows about them but me. “The worst kind, “she says…. Self-betrayal.

A fine recipe: Take the astral properties of a person, deceased or living, put on canvas, if there’s anything left over, drink it in an elixir of part truth, part fiction…. Not equal of course. Garnish with a sweet vaporous umbrella of constant use and study. If nothing else get the color right.

All of this just to say- I paint apparitions of people.

Who put this paintbrush in my hand?