Original artwork for sale
Colorful original oil portraits, commissioned oil portrait paintings, and figure oil paintings are all original artworks for sale by portrait artist Talya Johnson. From the very beginning of her article journey Tali loved drawing and painting people. Becoming a mother only intensified her desire to experience painting portraits from life. “Closely examining the human face is something that holds endless fascination for me. While all human beings are hardwired from infancy to seek out faces that return their gaze, I seem to have never satisfied the intensity of my own longing. As a child I remember painted portraits of both ancestors and strangers hung in the homes I inhabited. The images had a profound impact on my young mind, making me feel known and seen. I didn’t necessarily view these portraits as works of art so much as proxies of the individuals they represented. . . While I was never one to be curious about far-away places and cultures, portraits, especially those with a direct gaze from the sitter, have continually kept me curious about the individuals they represented and the communities from which they came.” Click here to view or purchase oil portraits and figure paintings here.
Contact Tali directly to inquire about a commissioned portrait of you or your loved one. Many of Tali’s portrait sitters have expressed how the intimate process of being painting was profoundly therapeutic. Tali is uniquely committed to making commissioned portraits affordable and accessible.You can read her recent thesis about painting 51 alla prima portraits of Oregon College of Art and Craft Community here.
This project began as an exercise in facing my fears: my fear of not being a good-enough artist, my fear of change, and most of all my fear of abandonment. Painting a series of portraits from life, with self imposed constraints on time and setting seemed like a good place to start. I would practice abandoning portraits after their allotted time, in an exercise of radical acceptance of my current skill level.
After the closure of my school, Oregon College of Art and Craft (OCAC), my desire for this project changed into a longing to memorialize and thank all who helped shape my once-in-a-lifetime experience in art school. Each portrait would become a gift. As my work progressed, however, it transformed and into something else, far transcending my original intent. Through the process of seeing and hearing my sitter while being seen and heard by them, by inadvertently removing all status visual clues from the residual painting, I found myself creating a visual web of human connectedness that is in a constant state of flux. The portraits would be hung joined together during my thesis exhibition, but would then break apart to emphasize the impermanence of this experience.
My own story is now intermingling and changing through the collapsing boundaries and intimacy inherent to my painting process. I enter a state of liminality by intensely focusing all my senses on capturing the external and internal truth within my subject. This ambiguous psychic space has value, not only for me, but for my subjects as well. Through a mysterious creative process our stories become one—a diverse yet harmonic chorus declaring to the world: We are wounded, imperfect, abandoned, and unfinished, but through us, the hope of our Community Remains.
The following event was cancelled due to COVID-19
This work will be part of the 2020 OCAC Cohorts PNCA BFA Thesis exhibition
From Concentrate, at Disjecta Contemporary Art Center
8371 North Interstate Avenue Portland, OR, 97217
Exhibit dates: April 19 to May 10
Gallery Hours: Friday-Sunday 12-5 pm
Reception April 18th 5-9 pm
First Saturday May 2nd 6-9 pm
The beautiful Pacific Northwest features diverse landscape views and scenic panoramas of mountain ranges, peaceful hillsides, fertile river valleys, rugged coastal vistas, and picturesque country farms. In this collection you will find both abstract landscape paintings painted with thick palette knife strokes, and colorful impressionist oil paintings that usually began as Plein air studies. Most of the paintings on location were created in Alaska, Washington and Oregon. Oil paintings of seascapes and treescapes by Tali are a particular favorite of art collectors who enjoy how color and texture add further meaning to conceptual painterly motifs.
