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All the Presidents [continued]

Mion realized how little she (and most Americans) knew about presidential history. Insistent on knowing the personality of the people she paints, Tina hit the books, and each painting is accompanied with a brief, often quirky, history lesson. An important feature of Mion’s portraits is the way she encrypts key elements from her subject’s careers and personalities, using different artistic styles to capture something of the flavor of their era. In many cases, this practice even extended to the frames. All the Presidents contains styles of painting from trompe l’oeil to pop art, and frames from turn of the century to 1950s metal kitsch.

The Sunday Painters did not last; it took more discipline than anyone imagined — but several paintings into her project Mion was not about to stop. Read more...