"Faces are the most interesting things we see; other people fascinate me, and the most interesting aspect of other people – the point where we go inside them – is the face. It tells all." -David Hockney

As an artist, I work in multiple disciplines, but I always find myself returning to portraits. There’s something very engaging and revealing about the landscape of a person’s face – how it tells a story about the things that are hidden from view. My goal in making portraits is to discover and reveal this quality behind each subject I paint. Working on portraits teaches me a lot about how I see people and see myself. I often end up transposing their identities with my own, and in a strange way, each portrait I paint can become a sort of self-portrait in its own right.

Most of the portraits here are recognizable subjects, either celebrity figures or cultural icons. I find it interesting to attempt to depict their elevated status and at the same time, reveal their humanity.

For portraits and conceptual work, I use mixed media, layering paint and colored pencil on top of vintage encyclopedia pages cut into smaller shapes. Early in my career, I used collage as a primary medium and as I began to paint, I never really let go of it. I try to use these layers to communicate something beyond what is visible on the surface.

My work as a freelance illustrator has allowed me to create art in a lot of interesting places with my wife Alicia and eight-year old daughter Paloma along side me. Over the past 10 years, we’ve lived in San Francisco, Spain, Orange County, Philadelphia, Northern Minnesota, San Diego, Germany, Napa and now Fort Collins, CO. I currently have a small studio where I play jazz LPs all day and my family helps me package and ship all the prints you purchase.

Since graduating from Northern Arizona University with a BFA in art, I’ve completed commissions for many, many clients including Time, Rolling Stone, Reader’s Digest, GQ, Newsweek, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Wall Street Journal, UCLA, Dow Jones, the Grammy Awards, Warner Brothers and Netscape among others. I’ve been fortunate enough to have my work selected multiple times into juried shows including the Society of Illustrators, Communication Arts, Print Magazine and American Illustration. I’ve shown in galleries in the U.S. and abroad and many fine people have collected my work over the years including Arnold Schwarzenegger, actor Chris Williams and author Robert Olen Butler.

To read more about my career and process, please visit the link below for an in-depth Communication Arts feature article:
http://issuu.com/scottlaumann/docs/ca_feature_article_-_scott_laumann

Some pieces are personal work, some were created for gallery shows or magazines and others were private commissions. The originals range in size, from 8 x10 inches to jazz paintings that are 6 x 9 feet. There are pseudo–caricatures, introspective portraits and various conceptual pieces.

I sincerely hope you enjoy them and greatly appreciate your support of my work.