Dramatic monumental portraits of iconic public and private figures, revealed through the story of paint, is the subject of an art exhibition of the work by renowned artist Zhenya Gershman, entitled “Larger Than Life,” unveiled at the Building Bridges Art Exchange Bergamot Station Art Complex. Over-sized paintings of her muses, including Clint Eastwood, Mick Jagger, Bryan Cranston, Robert Duvall and Willem Dafoe, adorn the show, which ran concurrent with the début of an official “Zhenya Gershman portrait” of Bob Dylan, The GRAMMY 2015 MusiCares Person of the Year. “I searched for various dimensions to get closer to my subjects: the recording of their voices, interviews, songs, memories, associations, and film appearances,” Zhenya says. “A curious psychological reversal occurs: while the viewer can easily recognize celebrity faces, slowly these icons begin to fade away replaced by a new persona presented by the painting that takes over the original source. These portraits are literally, poetically, and metaphysically LARGER than LIFE. I used human subjects and the people themselves became the ‘negatives’ that are used to ‘develop’ the works of art,” Zhenya adds.

April Neale, art critic for Monsters and Critics, writes: “These are not pretty people pictures. They are jaw dropping, honest reveals that give the observer a sense of insight and appreciation to the whole of the subject. Her art provokes, mesmerizes and intrigues with the sense of energy in what is normally a calm, still subject, and more importantly, Zhenya’s work creates dialogue, not only about her art, but about the life of the subject she has captured.” 

Exhibition premiered in 2015 at the Building Bridges International Art Exchange, Bergamot Station, Los Angeles.