Portraits by a young artist
Two years after graduation, Anna (Holsclaw) Bain finds success as a comissioned portrait painter.
Marieke van der Vaart
Issue date: 4/9/09 Section: Arts
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As one of 10 international artists contributing to the company's decor, Bain's six works of children will hang on the walls of two main conference rooms in Chicago, one facing east and the other facing west.
"These paintings are going to be hanging in some conference rooms where some of the top executives meet," Bain said. "So the whole goal of these paintings is to inspire the executives to fulfill the mission of the company."
Bain and her fellow artists were commissioned to show the company's vision on canvas, with even the subtlest details like the building's architecture and client countries' culture taken into account, gallery owner and art consultant for the project Curt Nance said.
"We came up with a composite that would give a narrative of what the company is trying to do," Nance said. "That composite really wanted to use paintings and original art work to illustrate what a child's life, the elements of childhood, [looks like] when their nutritional needs are met."
The company requested that its name be withheld to preempt complaints about non-essential spending, a move Nance said is typical for projects like these.
Bain's pieces feature portraits of children from Thailand, Mexico, China, the United States, France and the Philippines and represent the three graces from Greco-Roman mythology - beauty, mirth and cheer. One set of paintings represent the graces as portrayed by children from the East and will hang on the eastern boardroom. The other set feature children from Western countries and will hang in the western boardroom.
"[The company is] all about nutrition and providing nutrition for children around the world, especially young children," Bain said. "So I'm providing the three graces of the East and the three graces of the West."
Before she could begin painting, Bain searched to find models for the graces from Eastern and Western countries. She found her subjects through photos from friends who had travelled around the world and children in the area who agreed to model.
"It really required all she had and a lot of it wasn't fun," said Bain's mother, Hollee Holsclaw. "From locating the models, locating photographs of them or taking her own, putting together all these things to come up with composite pictures from which to paint."
The project appealed to Bain's experience as a portrait artist, a genre Bain's mother said that Bain didn't always love.
"She started drawing horses and animals," Holsclaw said. "When she was around 12 years old her father said, 'You know you make some really good horse drawings, but why don't you start drawing people?'"
Now people are Bain's favorite subjects.
"They fascinate me a whole lot more than anything else in nature," she said. "People are easily recognizable. It's a lot of fun for me to do a portrait and have people know who they are. To me that's the ultimate challenge and the most fun about it."
Her love of drawing people also plays into her drawing style she loosely defines as "classical realism," a combination of accurately drawing what she sees and representing her subjects as people.
"Basically realism tends to be more raw, bringing out every detail, making it very true to whatever it is," she said. "Classicalism tends to bring out the ideal beauty in things."
Holsclaw said her daughter's style grounds itself in this mixture of true-to-form depiction and true-to-character painting, a style Bain developed during her four years at Hillsdale.
"No longer was she just necessarily copying what she saw - it was no longer just a photograph," Holsclaw said. "She liked it when she didn't just receive a photograph of a person. She liked to talk to them a bit so she could more accurately paint them. It's a matter of knowing something more about your subject and being able to bring it to life on paper."
Senior Tricia Schoon, an art major who took classes with Bain, said Bain's idealization of people captured something in them that no photograph ever could.
"She just finds the best in people," Schoon said. "Photos capture people as they really are - but she shows a person at their best. In some ways it's a truer depiction of people than photographs. Her paintings transcend photography."
Schoon also described Bain as the "poster child" of the art department because of her talent and connection with Art Department Chair Sam Knecht.
"Sam loved her style," Schoon said. "She was very skilled - very, very skilled."
Knecht served as a mentor and teacher to Bain's style, Hosclaw said.
"He really believed in her, he really believed she could become a really good artist and helped her step-by-step develop that," she said.
For his part, Knecht saw incredible potential in Bain.
"Anna and [her twin sister Emily] were two of the best and brightest students we've had in the art department," Knecht said. "Anna's doing way better two years out of Hillsdale than any of my previous painting thoroughbred talent."
He still weighs in on Bain's work through e-mail correspondence.
"He showed me there's no one style to paint in, especially as you start as a young artist," Bain said. "My actual style comes down to the energy of the brushstrokes and the color choices I make, and that's something that I'm still developing and something he has kind of given me a green light to develop."
For the future, Bain already has portrait commissions lined up, but is grateful for the opportunities this project brought her.
"A lot of people are going to be seeing these paintings - it also gives me more credibility as a children's artist and it's just giving me more experience," she said. "The experience of putting together the composition and basing the pictures around a theme was actually something I didn't do a lot in school. It actually felt like a Hillsdale assignment like an English paper or something."
That's not to say the project hasn't presented Bain with challenges.
"It's a big commission for her," Nance said. "It would be a big commission for any artist. Anna's taken a lot of criticism - she's done a wonderful job."
But, Bain says, the challenges present her with more opportunities to grow.
"There were moments when I thought, 'This project is just too big for me,' but then it's been a huge challenge and you should never turn it down because you don't think you're good enough."
To see Anna Bain's work visit her Web site: www.annas-blank-canvas.com or take a look at some of her art on display at A.J.'s Café and near the art studio in Sage Center for the Arts.
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