Jeremy Meeks Portrait

I painted Jeremy Meeks during my 2017 residency at the One & Only Reethi Rah in the Maldives, after one of those encounters that only travel seems to allow. The tropical calm of the place and the scale of the three-meter canvas pushed the portrait into something direct and physical. What I remember most is the contrast, his public image, my spontaneous way of painting, the strange ease of that meeting. When Jeremy carried the work back to America, it felt like the painting had completed its own journey too.