Portrait of Paul A. Volcker 2015

Luis Álvarez Roure painted this portrait of Paul A. Volcker, and I can only imagine what that was like. It is a world of dark suits, bureaucratic stone carvings and heavy drapes, and yet, the painting has a lightness to it. It feels like Roure might have been trying to bring out something human in Volcker, who seems both like a powerful man and a guy with a gentle heart. I look at his hands, folded together so carefully, and I think about how an artist creates a portrait as a kind of dialogue between themself and their subject. All those layers of paint, one on top of the other, until you finally arrive at something that feels true. We painters, we’re all in conversation with one another, echoing and riffing off of the past. This portrait is as much about power as it is about trying to capture something real. It feels like Roure put his own spin on a very long tradition.