DC Artist Creates Impromptu Urban Portraits

A server in a long apron standing outside of Ben's Chili Bowl and a man eating a pastry on a city street: Washington, DC, artist Nicole Bourgea has captured them all for her new project "AS IS: An Urban Portrait Project."

Bourgea paints large-scale formal oil portraits, usually on commission. But recently she embarked on AS IS, a project in which she painted eight portraits of everyday people she met on the street.

After showing the paintings at a Sneak Peak at The Dunes (1402 Meridian Pl., NW, Washington, DC) this week, she plans to place each portrait where she met the subject and leave it with a note, which reads: "If this is you, this painting is yours to take."

Unique Gift

She hopes to surprise the person whom she featured with the gift.

Portrait Oil Painting

Bourgea explained her motivation for this project an in email to Patch [emphasis hers]:

"In a world where most human interaction is strained down to its digital pulp, this project asks the question 'Do we really see each other anymore?' by bringing fine art onto the street. I believe that while the attention that we pay to each other requires very little of us, we don’t often give it away freely. I want to tell people that they are seen. It is my hope that in some small way this project will ignite conversation about the power and the gift of notice."