The Portraitists – Details, episodes & analysis

A conversation with Aysha Nagieva, a Russian-born artist living and practicing in London, England. Nagieva spent her early girlhood in Moscow, discomforted by the rigidity of the traditional Russian artistic expectation. After transplanting to London, Nagieva’s interest in unfettered expression and fashion design developed into an artistic practice that nods to her Russian roots, while expanding beyond the boundaries of the academy. Nagieva hijacks the motif of the russian doll - transplanting it from its traditional origins into a contemporary and cheeky universe. Playfully, Nagieva breaks all the rules that intimidated her as a girl - and through her body of work an expansive self portrait emerges.     

@aysha.nagieva

A conversation with Lorenna Lannes, a Brazilian figurative artist practicing in New York, New York. Lannes’ work focuses primarily on capturing and exploring the impression of covert signals of emotion and intention - the “energy” a person emits beneath verbal and physical language. To paraphrase Lannes’ description - these sub-physical signals are the most honest, and learning to interpret them can be of great utility - no more so than keeping yourself safe.    

@lorennalannes

A conversation with Stelios Pupet, a Greek figurative artist that practices in Athens, Greece. Pupet developed his artistic practice as a young graffiti artist running from the authorities in the Athenian Metro. Pupet retained these foundations as he evolved into his fine art practice. Pupet depicts the human form, often female, often obscured or masked, or tranquil in an urban/suburban gardenscape. Pupet’s recent signature is his style of rendering in bold rigid shapes, capturing a moment as it freezes into 8-bit. 

A conversation with Steve Cannon, an Irish figurative artist practicing in Galway, Ireland. Cannon’s work remained steadily focused on human portraiture. Cannon captures his subjects with prying attention - resulting in hyper honest and vulnerable product - described as beginning “[torn apart]”. Cannon’s work has been frequently platformed by the Royal Hibernian Academy and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. 

@stevecannonartist

A conversation with Zboik Czajkowski, a Polish figurative artist that practices between the cities of Berlin, Germany and Warsaw, Poland. Czajkowski is a prominent figure in the street art and graffiti scene - his career taking him from London to Tokyo. Czajkowski’s current practice is balanced between large-scale mural commissions, which he executes with a small team, and that he pursues as an opportunity for travel and social engagement - and his studio practice, where he digests his emotions through the warped portraiture he renders in a signature visual language he’s developed since his youth. 

@zboik 

A conversation with Wylee Risso, a figurative painter currently practicing in Portland, OR. Risso’s body of work spans an eclectic assortment of subjects - images untethered by audience-focused theming, but instead images that strike the artist - the refracted lightshow of a dishpit, or a single frame of a cult-classic. Risso translates these images into a signature style characterized by a frenzy of lines that search for supernatural geometry - resulting in a sharp, flat, Euclidean fantasyscape.

@wyleerisso

A conversation with Rustam Hasanov, a Russian-American figurative artist currently practicing in Atlanta, GA. Hasanov is a multidisciplinary artist with a career in animation and character design. Inspired to rediscover the artistic passions of his youth - nonreactive to audience or commercialism - Hansanov has refocused on a ritualistic, and non-commodified practice. Hasanov creates rapid expressive gestural figures of his selected models - explore their condition as he emulates his own and merges the two. As a self-described introvert, through this practice, Hasanov seeks to connect. 

@rustamhasanov

A conversation with Roxy Peroxyde, a figurative artist practicing in Montreal, Canada. Peroxyde is best known for her vivid contemporary interpretations of classic paintings which she describes to be “witnesses to how times change but people stay the same”. Peroxyde yields to her subconscious as she develops her compositions - blending humor, pop culture, fashion, and a universal, but sometimes suppressed, feminine gaiety in her images.

*ref, roxyperoxyde.com

@roxyperoxyde

A conversation with James Zamora, a Texan figurative painter currently practicing in Savanna, GA. Zamora is known for his realist still life paintings that span subjects from traditional floral arrangements to images of contemporary mundanity. Zamora also elevates and immortalizes images and icons from his childhood - giving vintage gaming consoles the reverence of a Flemish composition. 

@jameszamora

A conversation with Gina Altadonna, a figurative artist currently practicing in Philadelphia, PA. Altadonna is a multidisciplinary artist, known for her vibrant watercolor and oil paintings. Altadonna uses her practice as a means of both inward and outward dialogue - articulating the experiences of girlhood and womanhood. Unabashedly, Altadonna reclaims the preferences of her youth and broadcasts them in her macabre compositions - depictions of trauma, melancholy, and mortality rendered in candies and ribbons.