I’ve painted and drawn Connie for twenty-five years. She has come to pose for me in my studio—from my first space in Long Island City to my current studio in Brooklyn. Over that time, our relationship has become an essential part of my work.
An artist’s relationship with a model is symbiotic. The model is both subject and collaborator, and a peculiar intimacy develops between them—unlike almost any other human bond. It isn’t built on conversation but on sustained looking, on shared time spent in mutual attention. In some sense the model becomes an object of study, not because the artist disregards her humanity, but because translating a living person into paint requires isolating form from the constant, subtle shifts of expression and physiognomy.
Over the years we’ve tried many approaches, and once I find one that works, I explore its variations exhaustively. When I decide a motif is worth pursuing, that decision itself grows out of countless subtle shifts I’ve captured in drawings—the residue of many careful observations.
One such motif is Connie with Her Eyes Closed. With her eyes shut, the model becomes something else entirely—no longer a woman watching me watch her, no longer negotiating the quiet tension of being observed and observing. She simply is: present, unguarded, her face released from the vigilance that seeing requires. Maybe that’s why painting her this way feels less like capturing a person and more like capturing a moment of trust.
In that moment, instead of looking out, she is looking in—adrift in her own memories, or simply pausing, resting, breathing. It’s a vulnerable state I find moving and compelling: leaning forward, turned inward, lost in thought and memory, or just resting in the quiet of her own breath.
In the end, this is not a finished product but an ongoing study—not just a sitting model, but a breathing, living being.
When her eyes close, I don’t see less.
I see everything.