Lisa Dubitsky
(Portland, OR)

21st Century Book Club, Oil paint, 30" x 48" x 2"

My first painting: My parents found a post-fire Victorian house to fix up for our family of six. I was three years old. They decided to paint a mural of our family along a bathroom wall. My mother started me on my self-portrait. She said, “Paint a circle for your head”. I did. This was easy! Then she said, “Now, put in your eyes.” I started adding eyes. The phone rang and she went downstairs to answer it in the kitchen. I liked adding eyes, so I kept doing it, until the circle was filled with eyes. There was an accuracy to this distortion - nature, people and animals, fascinate me endlessly. I want to show the essence that reverberates between my subject and my heart in that moment of mutual recognition.