Next Door to Nobility – Portraits

"NEXT DOOR TO NOBILITY"

We often cast our minds to distant lands in search of inspiring nobility.  I looked closer to home and found the magisterial right next door. The authority that comes from staring life's suffering in the eye is embodied in the faces of my neighbours.

These are portraits of people I consider the kings and queens of North Vancouver's Kings and Queens Roads and its environs.  Living just across the street, they are the everyday royals who sit on the throne of hardship and joy.  Protagonists in our universal drama, they defy the iron grip of fate with lives lived as intensely as mythic heroes.  Searching for immortal nobility, I only had to look at my neighbours' determined expressions to find audacity set against the storm.

To render both their defining endurance and aching vulnerability, I chose the high contrast medium of graphite pencil, a finely sharpened tool that enabled me to evoke the whispered delicacy of a single hair and the stone-hard resilience of a jaw, cheek and brow.