When I paint my imagery based on appropriated sources and/or historical imagery, I research my topic seriously, so as to fully understand what it is I’m creating an image of, and in the hope that not only will it have intellectual value in terms of its content, but that it might also resonate emotionally and transcend received notions and ideas to ultimately create an ineffable, sublime effect. Much like a method actor who would suture his own life into his character to both better understand his subject and to breathe life and real emotion into his performance, I try my best to understand the person I’m portraying as I’m painting a portrait, or world of a person or a culture, to help animate it and make it become alive, through empathy and compassion, as if I’m talking with them (NOT ventriloquizing through them) to honor who they are as human beings and how they might have changed the world for the better.

Many of my thoughts regarding this are inspired by Scott McCloud’s great book Understanding Comics, when he discusses the power of an icon—that it is relatable to a large audience, and that, at least in the case of an essentialized iconic form like a cartoon, that “we” become “it” when we view the image. Much like the Chinese monks who would enter into a state of “maw” when they made a screen or scroll—wanting themselves as artists, in addition to the viewer, to “enter nature,” they would meditate while rendering and “become” the simplified figure in a complex background, using it as an avatar into that world, I sometimes use real-life icons to not only create allegories based on what people might know about that figure and how it operates within the context I created for it, but also, by my handling of the paint and formal nuance, for them to “feel” what the character might be feeling.

While painting anything associated with Anne Frank I listen to the audio tapes of her diary, music that was recorded around the same time that they hypothetically could have been listening to and read research and view films about her and this period when I take breaks from my painting. When I finished this, my first portrait of her (now at the Cleveland Museum!), it was at the end of a long process where I had listened several times to the entire audio of the diaries, and at the end of my painting the tape was at a biographic section describing her seeing her long-lost friend and her weeping, and I found myself crying looking at my painting and feeling for her. Since then, I keep being drawn back to her as a figure (many shows in NY featured images of her, and my recent show in Amsterdam had over ten drawings of her—one constituted over forty tiny drawn portraits based on her photobooth pictures) and hope that I learn more each time and the work has become even more nuanced.

With this work, I was thinking of course of her to honor her and her legacy, but also thought a little of art history. Warhol was famous for bringing folks into a photobooth, and provoking them to smile and make great pictures, that he would then airbrush and make glamorous into silkscreened paintings—but in doing so would flatten the image, and in the case of many celebrities, flatten out their spirit—like in ideas of post-modernism, where agency (who we are as individuals and peoples) gets folded, like flour into pizza dough, into the capitalist machine. I also love and revere painters like Rembrandt, who was able to bring such depth and emotion to his portraits in his painterly masterly manner. What if you could bring that emotion to an iconic image, celebrate icons that have made history and changed the world, but also paint them in a manner that heralds their person? I think any great portrait has a good likeness, but more importantly, can bring out the spirit of the person behind their facade. I’m hoping with this work, that I am honoring Anne Frank, who wrote about wanting to be a great writer, and bring attention to the persecution of the Jews and all that were murdered in the Holocaust—this was so performative, as of course she was a GREAT writer who did exactly this. Also, she was coming of age in an era of begetting feminisms and wanted to be a strong female protagonist of her own life, and inspired so many, including young women, to be great and independent for generations, and generations still to come.

I was glad that when the contemporary wing of the Cleveland Museum opened after lengthy renovation, they installed this work where it remained for years. Then, it was moved to their Gallery One, where they would have an example of work to introduce each section of the museum at the entrance for visitors and children. A curator there told me how, in the accumulation of these many years, literally millions of people saw my work, including thousands of children, who they would have sit in front of the work, and after discussing it, would have the kids write their thoughts and reflections. There is no greater honor for an artist than to have their work in a museum, and I was beyond moved to learn about the children—for me art is about teaching, and teaching is an art, and art is language, and language is power. I’m hoping all that Anne Frank represents and as a portrait of this intrinsically great writer is honored by this work, and that all that see it reflect upon her, her legacy and writings, and of the horrible history of the Holocaust.