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“Awakened,” self-portrait of artist Johniene Papandreas. |
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“Joie De Vivre,” portrait of Provincetown artist-cabaret singer Ilona Royce-Smithkin. |
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Papandreas’s work is larger than life
By Melora B. North
Banner Staff
Walking down Commercial Street in Provincetown one might notice Gallery Voyeur in the East End where large portraits are positioned in the windows overlooking the sidewalk, surveying the scene with life-like but exaggerated eyes. These works are not your typical Victorian, drawing room portraits of Grampy Smith and cousin Albert, they are oversized glimpses into the very souls of the subject that jump out and present the viewer with an in-your-face reality that is both honest and bold, yet oddly whimsical all at once.
To stop and study these paintings by Johniene Papandreas is a temptation to trick your mind and coax it on to another plane of reality in which the imagination is a willing accomplice in a jaunt to the edge where Papandreas teeters between art of ancient historic times that balances ever so gently with today’s lighter fare.
Choosing models based on those depicted in the paintings that hark back to the Italian Renaissance, French romantics and the Pre-Raphaelite periods, Papandreas blends old styles with newer techniques while adhering to the methods often associated with such greats as Rembrandt and Da Vinci, a couple of her admitted favorite classical painters. Following in their footsteps she prefers to crop her subjects rather than paint the entire face or body — the final image a more sensual and dramatic piece that pops off the canvas.
Though Papandreas usually creates portraits born in her imagination she does occasionally paint friends and acquaintances, her most recent study being Provincetown painter-cabaret singer Ilona Royce-Smithkin, whose staggering 37-by-79-inch portrait titled “Joie De Vivre” is slated to be Papandreas’s 2009 limited-edition release. The piece is a dense brown and red study highlighted by a pair of long-lashed brown eyes with whites so bright they could light up a winter sky, the lips lush, plump rose buds frozen in a half smile of hidden joy, or perhaps the knowledge of some titillating secret.
A self-portrait titled “Awakened” was created when the artist was 32 and experimenting with portraiture. It is another large work, 27 by 74 inches, and is perhaps one of the reasons she is exploring portraiture these days. One emerald-green eye shaded, the other illuminated, the more vibrant eye is crystal clear, the studio light reflected in the sea of green, the iris black and free of light while a half moon of protective skin melts into the socket to create a curious, soulful frame for the window that reveals little except perhaps a gentle nudge into mindful wanderings.
Born in West Virginia, Papandreas grew up in South Florida and spent a lot of her adulthood in New York and Atlanta before coming to Provincetown in 2002. A graduate of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, with a degree in theatrical design, the artist did not always paint. In fact she says she is relatively new at it, her former art interest having been in sculpture.
“I started painting quite by accident six years ago,” she says. “And I think the large scale, also a complete accident, works an intriguing alchemy on the highly emotional and intimate nature of the expressions I paint.”
At five feet, eight inches tall, Papandreas creates works that range from 3 by 5 feet to as large as 7 by 9 feet so the expressions she refers to are larger than life and no easy task to re-create. A theatrical set designer by formal profession for more than 20 years, Papandreas, who still does set design for corporate events, is used to working on large scale projects and uses the tricks of the trade she has learned along the way to create her paintings.
In order to ensure that a painting is proportionately correct she says, “Grids are the time-honored method. But now we have shortcuts. I do an acetate tracing of the smaller version from which I am working and project it on to my canvas with an old-fashioned overhead projector.” She explains further, “I then draw the outline in charcoal directly onto the canvas. Working this large, it’s essential that the proportions be correct and this method assures it.”
The canvas Papandreas refers to is usually a tight weave muslin that the artist stretches onto a frame. To make the canvas tight and strong she applies hot laundry starch, then lets it dry. Once the canvas is prepared she gets out her brushes and gets down to business painting thin layer upon thin layer with water-based casein paint laced with either milk or soy to create a treatment that is dense, durable and dramatic, thus allowing for the illusion of exaggerated light and depth.
The artist’s work is so grabbing, so startling in real life, that one can almost reach out and feel the blood flowing through the subject, the heart beat under the shirt. They are refined vistas into the human psyche that take the viewer into the canvas where time is frozen, another person immortalized and caught for posterity, a memento of the naked truth as seen through Papandreas’s eyes focused on Renaissance-like imagery.
Gallery Voyeur, 444 Commercial St. in Provincetown, is open every weekend from noon to 4 p.m. through the first week in January.
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Nov 20th, 2008