When I first saw this portrait, I thought it was a damn good portrait and – though you could see it as unflattering – those narrow eyes, I didn’t see it that way. The eyes could equally be visionary – scanning the horizon for those new vistas that George was going to take us to of welcoming parties throwing flowers to the troops as they brought Truth, Justice and the American Way to the Middle East.
It looked to me like the kind of portrait that could easily be an official portrait, albeit perhaps not in the style that GWB might like – though I don’t know what his taste in art is. But there’s a bit more to it than that. If you’ve not seen it before, have a look at the subject’s right ear. Then look at it more closely on the author’s site.
Whatever you think, it’s pretty clear that the guy who did this knows how to make an image.
Damned if that doesn’t look like Chairman Mao.
Oy. Indeed. Thanks Nick. ;-)
It took a while before that image snapped into view. Genius! This deserves to be linked far and wide. I just hope the artist doesn’t wind up in gaol or dead.
He doesn’t seem to have done that with any of the other portraits on the web site, nor indeed made any kind of political cultural statement — not even with Rupert Murdoch. Anyway, it would make a great gift for the new Presidential Library.
Yup, move over a bit Lucien Freud, you’ve got serious company.
WOW! Do you have some repressed prejudice that causes you to associate artists with criminality?
But I guarantee you he ends up dead.
Yes Nabs – a good comparison. I think he (ie Lucien F) came half way to the top of my mind as a looked at the portrait. Thx for bringing that thought into consciousness.
Don’t really wish to spoil the fun; any half decent imaging software can map a photo to which you can add the matching tone (cut or taken from whatever you like) to the designated areas. The real magic, however, happens in our heads as we look upon it.
True Robert.
And imaging software could probably fake the look of bits cut out of several photos, including the daggy, not quite glued down corner shown in one of the detail shots on the artists site.
Makes you wonder, doesn’t it – did he actually do it by cutting up photos, or did he just Photoshop the whole thing up one quiet afternoon when he had nowt better to do?
Robert: Don’t worry for a second that you’re spoiling the fun, dear. The fact is that, no matter what computer geeks might think works fine, all those obvious programs which mosaic other images into a face, or whatever, only make things look like simply a weaker version of the photo they’re based on. Because this guy is clearly a painter, not a tech joker, he’s made something which looks like a 3-d, almost sculpted image. And, yes, the Freud analogy is a good one.
My thoughts entirely Brian. Just looking at what he’s done you can tell the guy is the full quid.
there’s this one too: [NSFW]