Opening reception for exhibition by Boris Torres: ‘People I Know’

The Anne Reid ’72 Gallery at Princeton Day School will open an exhibition of 30 portraits painted from life by artist Boris Torres on Jan. 8, with a public reception from 3 to 5 p.m. The show, People I Know, features works created over six years in the artist’s Brooklyn studio and drawn from a series of more than 100 portraits. Exhibition dates are Jan. 8 through March 6. Private viewings are available by contacting annereid72gallery@pds.org.

The portraits, each painted on 18-by-24-inch paper in a single session, began with a commission for a friend and continued as Torres invited people he knows or admires to sit for him, drawing inspiration from portraitist Alice Neel. Sitters choose their clothing — “something extravagant, something special or something casual and comfortable,” Torres says — and collaborate on a pose before the painting begins. The artist works while conversing with the sitter, allowing for natural shifts in posture as he moves among facial features, hands and other details. After the sitter leaves, he completes the painting.

Torres said he hopes viewers, especially students, recognize the collaborative nature of portraiture from life. “It has been around always, and it’s a collaboration between you and the sitter,” he said. “Painting from life is much different than painting from a photo… It is a time to be still and get to know someone through looking and silence.” Seeing the works together “feels like a reunion,” he added.

About the artist: Boris Torres (b. 1976, Ecuador) earned an MFA in fine arts from Brooklyn College and a BA from Parsons School of Design. A Leslie-Lohman Museum Fellow and artist-in-residence at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Torres has exhibited at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Tacoma Art Museum, Leslie-Lohman Museum and Cheim & Read. His work is included in the permanent collection of the National Museum of Ecuador and has been featured in The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Out Magazine and in film and television projects including Keep the Lights On, Love Is Strange, American Horror Story and Only Murders in the Building. He is represented by Kates-Ferri Projects in New York.