Mozart
50 x 60 cm
oil/linen 2024
Ante Wessels

Homer

Homer
50 x 60 cm
oil/linen 2024
Ante Wessels

"I am Athena, child of Zeus. I always stand near you and take care of you, in all your hardships."

Jack Kerouac
50 x 60 cm
oil/linen 2023
Ante Wessels

Nina Simone
50 x 60 cm
oil/linen 2023
Ante Wessels

Isadora Duncan
50 x 60 cm
oil/linen 2023
Ante Wessels

Quintus Ennius
50 x 60 cm
oil/linen 2023
Ante Wessels

Rembrandt
50 x 60 cm
oil/linen 2023
Ante Wessels

Edvard Munch
50 x 60 cm
oil/linen 2023
Ante Wessels

San Francesco d'Assisi
Saint Francis of Assisi
50 x 60 cm
oil/linen 2022
Ante Wessels

Billie Holiday
50 x 60 cm
oil/linen 2022
Ante Wessels

William Shakespeare
50 x 60 cm
oil/linen 2022
Ante Wessels

Vincent van Gogh
to Fleur
50 x 60 cm
oil/linen 2022
Ante Wessels

Theocritus
50 x 60 cm
oil/linen 2022
Ante Wessels

Maria Callas
50 x 60 cm
oil/linen 2022
Ante Wessels

The portraits started with Maria Callas. Years ago, I accidentally saw a video of Callas. The emotion and other world quality of her singing captivated me. Her face seemed fluid; it expressed ten emotions in a second. I had never painted a portrait; I decided to paint her's.

I find other worldliness intriguing. Artists may express an aspect of it. I assume we have a soul, which can be in contact with yet something else. And then, being so open, how to live in this world?

Niccolò Machiavelli
50 x 60 cm
oil/linen 2021
Ante Wessels

John Coltrane
50 x 60 cm
oil/linen 2021
Ante Wessels

Goya

Francisco de Goya
50 x 60 cm
oil/linen 2021
Ante Wessels

Marcel Proust
50 x 60 cm
oil/linen 2021
Ante Wessels

Om Kalsoum
70 x 70 cm
oil/linen 2021
Ante Wessels

Virginia Woolf
50 x 60 cm
oil/linen 2021
Ante Wessels

Sappho

Sappho
50 x 60 cm
oil/linen 2020
Ante Wessels

While preparing the portrait, I imagined it in greens. I didn't like the idea, thought it would turn out ugly. But I kept seeing greens. What to do?

I went to the park, meditated. It was as if Sappho appeared, she asked:
"Shall I help you?"
"Well, yes ..."
"Fresco."

That's the only word she said. I knew that I wouldn't have to paint a fresco (I can't), and the painting wouldn't have to look like one. It would be enough to keep the word in mind while painting. Then the greens were not needed.