Bryan Drury's 'Portraits' at Dean Project
By KEN JOHNSON
Published February 2, 2012
Dean Project
511 West 25th Street, Chelsea
Through Feb. 25
At first blush Bryan Drury's six compact panel paintings appear to be conventionally old-fashioned portraits of the kind of men and women who have the resources to commission faux-Renaissance pictures of themselves and their family members. But the closer you look, the weirder they seem. Mr. Drury, a recent graduate of the New York Academy of Art, produces an extraordinarily intense realism that registers pores, wrinkles and grainy skin textures as well as hair, jewelry, fabric and glassy eyes so exactingly that you might suspect a high-resolution photographic under layer. (There is none.)
By KEN JOHNSON
Published February 2, 2012
Dean Project
511 West 25th Street, Chelsea
Through Feb. 25
At first blush Bryan Drury's six compact panel paintings appear to be conventionally old-fashioned portraits of the kind of men and women who have the resources to commission faux-Renaissance pictures of themselves and their family members. But the closer you look, the weirder they seem. Mr. Drury, a recent graduate of the New York Academy of Art, produces an extraordinarily intense realism that registers pores, wrinkles and grainy skin textures as well as hair, jewelry, fabric and glassy eyes so exactingly that you might suspect a high-resolution photographic under layer. (There is none.)
