Portraits

Artur Rama paints them close and detailed. Lady of the House is a Renaissance portrait in miniature at 24 by 30cm, worked braid by braid with the background dissolved into smoke. Rain Flower has white paint pulled down the whole surface in long thin runs, so the face is seen through a rained-on window.

Michele Rama refuses to blend. She lays colour down in flat decisive patches and leaves them where they land, so the likeness only assembles itself once you step back from it. Che Caprio and Mirrored gaze are both a metre tall and read clearly across a room. Got my eye on you takes the idea furthest, a single eye filling the whole canvas.

Very different ideas of a portrait sit side by side here, and it is worth knowing which one you are looking at before you judge either.