Exhibition dates: 2nd – 16th June 2016

The 504 Gallery Room presents Portraits: a group exhibition exploring the artworks of both local and international artists, and celebrating the current renaissance and reinterpretation of this classic genre.

The exhibition showcases various expressions of portraiture from timeless pencil drawings to the new media of digital photographs, variously influenced by different movements during the Nineteenth century such as Surrealism and the Pop Art movement as the exhibition shows.

Portraiture is an ancient art form which flourished about 5,000 years ago, going right back to ancient Egypt.

In the past, and until photography, the only way to record someone’s physical appearance was a painted, drawn or sculpted portrait. However, this genre has always been more than a mere record, and often indicative of power, virtue, importance, and much more qualities.

In the Nineteenth Century, photography became the most important medium of traditional portraiture, making premium pieces affordable to almost everyone.

Since the 1990s, further technological spread has seen portrait artists add video to their repertoire, to create living portraits, even as original, manual portrait painting extends its unending journey through the Twenty First Century.

ARTISTS: Clare Clark, Giorgio Rinaldi, Jonathan Graham, Kate Marr, LPI Photography, Mimi Evripidou, Stephan Andreas, Vishal Joshi.