I have always found immense gratification in accurately portraying a person with just pencil and paper. I remember selling drawings to classmates for a nickel in elementary school and spending hours drawing pictures of Superman and Michael Jordan. Early on I was inspired by my grandfather who was a great artist and professional illustrator and overall creative, determined person. Additionally, I was exposed to many of the works of John Singer Sargent and often reminded by my grandmother (once in a rather loud voice while touring the Biltmore house) of our ancestral ties to his uncle, Winthrop Sargent.
However, I had a more intense emotional response to music and chose to devote my time and studies to the trumpet, eventually attending Furman University and Yale School of Music. It was after graduate school while living in Manhattan and visiting often the many museums and galleries when I aroused an old urge. After returning to my hometown Greenville SC, I tried for the first time my hand at painting — modern and abstract acrylics inspired by the Picassos and Matisses I had admired, then eventually oils in a more traditional style. Once my technique improved, I joined White Whale Studios and Gallery in West Greenville, working and learning alongside inspiring talents in a professional environment.
The process now is a welcome escape and a means to focus the lens when it is unfocused. The challenge of creating likeness is a balance of problem-solving and style. Sometimes the process is pure chaos and torture until the end, and other times it is free and effortless. I find inspiration from musicians and composers and between commissions use them as practice so they can adorn my walls.
Playing music and portraiture is the same. It is constant comparison and adjustment, both to an objective and an ideal. Like music, portraiture is a medium of replication and expression — an effort to reproduce what already exists in a way that inspires that which does not.
—CK