Brazilian artist Harding Meyer creates imposingly large-scale portraits that immediately draw the viewer into the subject’s oversized gaze. The works feature prominent brushstrokes and sometimes distortions that hint that we’re looking at the subject through glass or some other barrier.
The faces are taken from all sorts of media such as magazines, film, and television. But they are not popular figures, nor are they completely real. While he may start with a single person, he’ll combine images and edit them until the resulting portrait becomes something both familiar and anonymous.
Meyer is comfortable working between these contrasts. The works appear to simultaneously reveal and conceal, to intimate and hold back. All the while, the blown-up faces of these imaginary figures overwhelm the viewer with a direct, unwavering gaze.
