Rancho Mirage Library Features Barones

“LET’S FACE IT”
Larger-than-life
Hyper-realistic cutout wood portraits
By Karen & Tony Barone

Rancho Mirage Library Exhibition
December 2007 through March 2008

The portraits in this exhibition were executed mostly in 2002. In these works the Barones have paid a return visit to classical portraiture using elements of Italian Renaissance drawing. Using variations of sienna and umber the Barones have created large- scale photo-realistic portraits of the head and face only. Because the Barones consider themselves primarily sculptors, they uniquely execute the portraits on one-inch thick maple veneered wood using the natural wood grain and coloration as the medium ground.

The Barones describe this photorealism style of portraiture as “…not portraits of the subject, but rather portraits of a photograph of the subject.” Keeping one foot in the “artist as craftsman” tradition of 15th century Europe, the Barones carve away the silhouette, freeing the subject from its rigid rectilinear material. The unique combination of materials and hyper-realist execution allows them to gently and carefully place the other foot solidly in the contemporary art world.