©2023 Jeff Lung
One of the best parts of my job as an artist is evoking emotion from others. My favorite works of art often move me. They move me to tears, to smile, to roar! As a connoisseur, I am drawn to art that makes me feel something.
So when I was recently contacted by an old friend to paint a portrait he could gift to his girlfriend — something to make her feel the joy of a memory from many years ago — I was up for the challenge. The portrait was to be of her and her father (now passed) referencing a photo from her childhood, sitting on her father’s lap. The picture was so charming that I couldn’t wait to get painting.
Look at the expression in her face. It’s one that cannot be duplicated in adulthood — so pure and unaffected. And the joy in his face is that of a father truly living in the moment. We the viewer can see the connection immediately through his smile.
As a painter, when I stare at the same reference photo for a very long time, I often get bored. But with this picture, the overwhelming happiness was so strong I didn’t want to stop.
If you’ve been following my artwork at all, you probably know that my style often includes embedded words hidden within the doodled backgrounds. In this case, my friend wanted me to include a phrase his girlfriend’s father would often say at the end of an encounter: “It’s not goodbye, it’s see you later.”
This is a phrase I was familiar with myself having heard it many years ago. To this day, I can’t recall who said it to me but I have never forgotten it. So much so that even now I tend to say “See you later” over “Goodbye” to my loved ones.
Painting in purple added to the whimsically dreamy background. It whispered: “It’s not goodbye, it’s see you later” — the ultimate promise that beyond death there will be another time to enjoy one another’s company.
Painting this portrait was a practice in memory enhancing. I had the privilege of stepping into someone else’s memory. Once there, I got to decorate and adorn it. I got to be a new memory maker.
If you would like to invite me to be YOUR new memory maker, to paint a special portrait just for YOU or to gift to a friend/colleague/loved one, I would be honored. You can see some of my works at this *link* Please contact me at jeff@jefflungart.com to get your project started!
Meanwhile, can you see the phrase in the background? Once you’ve seen it, you can’t UNSEE it. So… tell me in the comments. Can YOU see it and if so how long did it take? 😛