Portraits, Blue is a series of seven portraits which juxtapose painted and video portraits of the same subject; all of the subjects have blue eyes. In the exhibition shot at the right, two of the works shown (partially obscured) on the right wall are large (36" x 36") painted oil portraits on panel, in which panel is also embedded an LCD monitor hidden by a frosted Plexiglas scrim. The LCD panel displays a video loop that fades to black between brief segments of video footage, making the video image disappear behind the scrim.

 

The larger project piece shown, moon (jd), is a diptych of a painted panel juxtaposed with a video projection. The video projection is of the faces of women from various old and contemporary master's oil portraits which dissolve and fade into one another, culminating in the image of a self-portrait of the artist.

 

sky (chris) is a large painted oil portrait on wood panel, in which panel is also embedded an LCD monitor hidden by an L-shaped frosted Plexiglas scrim. The LCD panel displays a video loop that fades to black between brief segments of video footage, making the video image disappear behind the scrim. Details of the video and painting from sky (chris) are shown; the scale of the oil painting of the face at the right is 3' wide by 3' high. The video footage of each subject includes not only moving images of their face, but other things which describe and create an atmosphere of their persona - for example, pages turning of their favorite text, a sky full of fireworks, or an accelerated New York taxi ride.

 

 

 

 

JD Beltran Portraits Blue Installation

 

JD Beltran, Portraits Blue Series:  sky (chris)

 

JD Beltran, Portraits, Blue Series, detail of sky (chris)