Image credit: Antoinette Hächler, Like a dog with a bone, 2008, mixed media, courtesy of the artist.
Antoinette Hachler Like a dog with a bone
Hächler set herself the task of creating a portrait a day for a year within a structural size and time limit. Photographing people she met during the day and painting in the evening, her self imposed task forced her to work through many problems of portraiture instead of discarding the results.
The 365 portraits are uniform in size but hugely different in style, scope and character giving us an opportunity to embrace the wonderful diversity of the genre that is portrait painting.
Artist Antoinette Hächler made a New Year’s resolution in 2007. She set herself the task of creating a portrait a day for a year within a structured size and time limit. Photographing people she met during the day and painting in the evening, herself imposed task forced her to work through many problems of portraiture instead of discarding the results. The 365 portraits are uniform in size but hugely different in style, scope and character giving us an opportunity to embrace the wonderful diversity of the genre that is portrait painting.
Hächler also set herself a number of ‘rules’ in creating the portraits, these were that the paintings had to be in colour (to break from four years of working in monochrome); once the painting was in progress, it could not be discarded, regardless of its outcome; as long as the painting was done before going to sleep that night it counted for that day and the format had to be the same every day.
The subjects of the portraits range from her family and friends to total strangers. Initially Hächler asked people if she could photograph them but soon realised that she disliked the stilted quality of a posed shot.
Artist
