Throughout its long history portraiture has provided a fascinating record of individuals, social documents of status denied or confirmed, and evidence of transactions between artists and models. But it is also remarkable for retaining, almost uniquely in the art world, some objective standards for evaluation. You can't cheat a figure or a face. We all know the human form so well and recognize familiar faces so readily, that we see problems of representation instantly. So portraiture offers a genuine challenge to artists to create something that is both like and something that moves beyond mere documentation. I’m interested in who is painted by whom, and how the audience for portraits is changed by the role or fame of the sitter. Portraiture is often either public (as in official portraits of heads of state or significant people commissioned for public display); or private (as in portraits of individuals important primarily to the family and friends of the subject). In my own portraits I try to blend the public and private by attempting to represent both the identifiable likenesses of specific individuals and something of our common contemporary experience.