Jan Aronson, a New York City artist, will put down her paintbrush and pick up a laser pointer. The enthusiastic artist will fly in today to give lecture on portraiture in a one-hour Power Point presentation titled “The Contemporary Portrait — An Artist Responds to Trends in Painting.”
The free presentation — at 8 p.m. in W151 Pappajohn Business Building — is not meant for the art elite but for all those who are interested in the arts. The content of her lecture will not be over the public’s head, she said, and she encourages all to attend.
“The process of creativity is very similar in every discipline, and the lecture will hold significance to all arts,” Aronson said from her Big Apple studio.
When compiling work for this project, she rifled through hundreds of artists and narrowed it down to 28 who she found most compelling, as well as her own work. She will not discuss known or popular artists because of the vast literature already available about their work.
“I don’t feel I have anything to add to them,” she said.
The artists that she will feature, such as Charles Parness and Maria Lassnig, are divided into seven categories that Aronson devised. These include self-portrait, new/old masterism, pop culture/historical figures, pop forward, painterly realism, psychological portraits, and anomalies.
These categories explore the details and inspirations of art, which delve deeper than exterior beauty.
In her work, she views nature as her primary subject. She labels herself a representational artist, but her creations are considered to be “abstract.” Currently, she is working on a series of water-theme paintings, using oil and graphite, that has been going on for two years.
Occasionally, Aronson will paint portraits. When describing her passion for portraiture, she illustrated her love of it as a way to “try to get to the essence of a person.” The painting is half the artist and half the sitter, she said. She believes that the artist cannot be objective — rather, an artist aims at “revealing the unknown, which is subjective.”
“I like to delve into the psyche of the human being,” she said.
Her agenda in her first visit to Iowa City will be short because of her two-day stay, but she hopes to visit the bookstores downtown, which she has heard good things about. If time allows, she plans on eating at one of the many restaurants in the area.
“I like being in a place I have never been before,” Aronson said.
She hopes her lecture will promote painting in the Iowa City area. “Contemporary art is composed of many things still being done in interesting ways,” she said. “[The public] may find [it] interesting and compelling.”