Beginning in May 2020, I have been working on a series of portraits of individuals who died in the Covid pandemic. My source images here are drawn from photographs submitted by families to accompany the obituaries of their loved ones published by The New York Times under the heading “Those We’ve Lost.” I transform each photograph by cropping it to a square life-size headshot then painting the portrait using a technique of black India ink and water painted on the surface of translucent waxed rice paper. The exhibition I propose will be an installation of 250 painted portraits of people from around the world, representing the millions of people who who died from the coronavirus. These will be installed in six rows around three of the walls of a gallery space. On the back wall, I plan to exhibit a video of the painted portraits, illuminated and enlarged in scale. It will focus on individuals sequentially, also giving their names and a brief one sentence profile of each as the images slowly appear and disappear. This darkened space will have seating and be separated from the lit half of the gallery space by a hanging scrim (see images). Painting each portrait reanimates the liveliness and spirit in each face. In their specificity, the portraits offer an experience that allows you to feel the common humanity of our experience. The portraits can also be seen @covidportraitseries.