Sunrise, how did you meet Alex?
At an exhibition of his work. I approached him and said if he ever needed a model, to please contact me, and I gave him my number. He reached out a few days later. That was fifteen years ago.
How did you end up as the subject for this body of work?
I honestly don’t know, I never asked. I don’t think the original intent was to have a show with just paintings of me. I’m pretty sure that happened after he took photos of me, which was new for us.
What was the collaborative process like?
The process has changed over the years. In the beginning, I would come to the studio three or four times and sit for him, for maybe an hour each time. During the first sitting, he did a small acrylic painting that was very realistic. It was a study, not at all like what the large finished paintings would end up looking like. And every session after that there would be drawings, stripping away and stripping away until Alex got to the most simple essence and features of my face.
When I sat for him, we mostly talked about what was happening in our lives at the time. Or he’d tell me stories about [his wife] Ada when she was young, the New York they came up in, and how much they loved to dance together. She’s his eternal muse.
I was lucky enough to sit for his red hat series. It was a few months after my father passed away. During the session, we were talking about losing our fathers and my eyes began to well up with tears. Alex added that to the painting. His gallerist, Gavin Brown, told me it’s something he hadn’t done before. Alex ended up going back over the other paintings in the series and adding that to all of them. It’s a little glint in the corner of my eye, some white paint, no big deal. But it added so much feeling to the work.
By the time of Covid, the process changed. For the painting [at The Park], we went out of the studio [in New York] to the corner of West Broadway and Houston, and he photographed me with his iPad. He said he liked the light there. After printing the photos, he would cut them up and create minimalist collages. He called them his split paintings, his abstracts. [The Park’s] piece came out of that series.
What was your reaction when you saw the finished pieces?
They’re my favourite paintings we’ve done together. The ‘Sunrise’ show at the Schindler house in Los Angeles consisted of 14 paintings. To see them all together, and in such an architecturally significant modernist home, was overwhelming. I’m so grateful I’ve had the privilege of working with and knowing him.