Portraiture Now: Drawing on the Edge

From the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, in Washington, D.C., comes an exhibition focusing on the intersection of contemporary drawing and portraiture. Drawings are traditionally admired for their directness, as the most immediate transcription – from eye to hand to paper – of an artist’s imagination. Over the past two decades, however, contemporary artists have moved beyond the quick sketch, compositional study, and memory aid to embrace drawing with new enthusiasm and ambition. The six artists in this exhibition – Mequitta Ahuja, Mary Borgman, Adam Chapman, Ben Durham, Till Freiwald, and Rob Matthews – exemplify this trend with different approaches but the same energized commitment.