John Michael Byrd

I consider all of my paintings to be self-portraits. It’s a creative embodiment that helps me to construct my artistic response as I imagine myself in my subject’s situation: Who is this person? What are they thinking? Where are they going, and where have they been? I appropriate stories from people I observe and assign them new roles in a new narrative-always balancing identity and anonymity.

I look at my sitters as gender-neutral, ignoring societal views that focus on sexual disparity. In that way I find that I can relate more to the essential character and emotion.

This helps to foster a strong sense of ambiguity in my painting as stereotypical roles are easily expressed as male or female, e.g., the diva, the groupie, the nymphet, the ingénue or the fool. Each work feeds the next. Subject matter repeats, overlaps and shifts perspective.  All characters in some way relates to or references the one before.

My paintings strip away environment and focus on the pure human being.  I use transparent watercolor washes and acrylic glazes to lay down features that define forms and facial features. Working as quickly as possible, I ensure a genuine personal response to my subjects.

Everything we see is tainted by connotations. Since I can’t erase a person’s memories, I work with those preexisting associations to create new ones. For me, the unseen subtext is always more interesting and authentic than the original context.