Lincoln

I first painted a large-scale portrait of Abraham Lincoln almost two decades ago—and, if anything, that hyperrealist representation only amplified how iconic a face we see daily on our five-dollar bills and pennies already is, and how disconnected we feel from him as a human being. The vertical lines that I added here to break up that familiar image, fragmenting Lincoln’s face and representing the sense of disconnection and the way he’s being lost in the folds of passing time, oddly makes Abe feel more poignantly human and more approachable than ever.