PHOTOGRAPH, PIGMENT, BEESWAX, OIL AND TEXTURE.

Mixed Media Portraits

A mixed-media portrait begins with a photographic image, but it does not remain a photograph. Each work is built by hand through pigment, oil, beeswax, texture, and surface. The portrait becomes an object — something with depth, material presence, and the mark of the artist's hand.

From Image to Object

The Mixed Media Process

Each piece begins as a portrait printed on cotton rag.
From there, it is worked by hand with layers of wax and pigments built slowly into the surface.

The result is a singular object, 
marked with uniqueness by a human hand.

The Photograph 
and the Hand

A portrait experienced with more than your eyes.

I have always been drawn to artwork that invites you closer. It began with the texture of moss, dew resting on wildflowers and portraits drawn as a teenager. Later came paintings and murals large enough to enter, including a three-and-a-half-storey Jack and the Beanstalk whose story revealed itself as people climbed.

Twenty years in education deepened my understanding of how differently each person moves through the world. That sensitivity now informs every mixed-media portrait Jérôme and I create.

Your artwork begins with a photograph in which something unguarded has occurred: a gesture, an intensity or a moment of connection in which the people pictured have become absorbed in one another. The image carries a human meaning that reaches beyond their personal story.

My work begins in response to the character already held within that photograph. Working by hand with pigments, oils and beeswax, I develop a surface that follows the emotional character of the image. A spontaneous moment may invite freer brushwork and movement; a more formal portrait may call for restraint. Texture draws certain details forward, while layers allow others to soften or recede.

The resulting artwork reveals itself gradually. From across the room, you encounter the portrait. As you move closer, the surface, depth and handwork become visible. Over time, different details ask for your attention.

Jérôme creates the encounter and the photographic portrait. I respond through material. These two contributions remain distinct within one original artwork.

The photograph holds the encounter. The materials carry my response. The artwork holds both.

— Nisha Scullino

Jane Reucassel

Lucy Gagnon

Trichromatic Mixed Media

In certain commissions, the mixed-media work begins with a colour concept before the portrait is made.

These Trichromatic works are the most interpretative extension of the studio practice. The colour is not decorative, and it is not added afterward as an effect. It is carried through the clothing, background, light, form, focus, pigment, oil, beeswax, and surface.

Where the monochrome portraits reduce the image to presence, Trichromatic Mixed Media uses colour to interpret what is perceived beneath the surface.