At Portrait Gallery, the very picture of pain and perseverence   



 Andrea Stone Senior Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON – Arlene Coffman stared at the man in the painting. He had no ears, no nose, no eyebrows. Instead of smile lines by his eyes there was scar tissue. Tears welled in her eyes.

 "It's incredible. It's hard to describe because it's so moving," said Coffman, 64, visiting here from Pebble Beach, Calif. "Most portraits bring emotions. This one is emotional in a different way."

 The face in Coffman's gaze belongs to retired Army Sgt. Rich Yarosh. On Sept. 1, 2006, he was in the turret of a Bradley assault vehicle when it hit a roadside bomb in Baghdad. He and two other soldiers were engulfed in flames. One later died. Yarosh suffered burns on 60 percent of his body, lost part of his right leg and has limited use of what's left of his hands.

 Three years later, most of it spent in an Army hospital, and after 35 surgeries, his scarred countenance is now proudly featured at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery here. The painting is one of 49 finalists out of 3,300 entries in the museum's second Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. It will hang in the building for the next year with iconic images of presidents, scientists and celebrities.

 "I didn't want the depiction of his injury to overwhelm the depiction of his humanity," said Matthew Mitchell, the Amherst, Mass., artist who painted Yarosh as part of a project called 100 Faces of War Experience. Despite the soldier's obvious wounds, said Mitchell, "He's a whole person."

 That's something Tony Bass recognized. A portrait of the New York psychoanalyst stares across the second floor gallery toward Yarosh's. Both men were among the first to view the paintings when the competition exhibit opened to the public Friday.

 "There's a sense of his having survived this horrendous trauma, a sense of his spirit coming though," said Bass, 58. "The eyes and the stance – it's an amazing picture of someone prevailing in the face of almost unbelievable tragedy."

 Museum curator Brandon Fortune, who organized the competition, said Miller's portrait of Yarosh was "quite traditional" in its head-and-shoulders composition. "It has gravitas, that dignity that really gives it its power," she said.

 "He looks calm, like he's dealing with it," said Carmen Diaz, 66, of Alhambra, Calif. "He's gone through the worst in life and yet he can smile. He can sit for this. He's going on."

 Yarosh, now 27 and back home in Windsor, N.Y., didn't accept his new look easily. He didn't see his face until five months after the explosion – and then only by accident when he glimpsed himself in the reflection from a laptop computer screen.

 "It took another six months to get used to it, especially to going out in public," said Yarosh, who says he still scares little children sometimes. "I'm so used to it now. I still get looks but it doesn't bother me."

 Several visitors wandering the gallery seemed drawn to his portrait. Many stopped to read Yarosh's own words about his ordeal in Iraq: "That day started the same as every other day, but that day has never ended."

 The portrait is "beautiful but also alarming," said Odile Schalit, 24, of New York. She wondered what it would be like to lose control over her own face, that most basic ingredient of identity. Then, gesturing around, she said, "After seeing this, so many of the other portraits seem so self-indulgent."

 Yarosh said he always wanted to sit for a portrait and is thrilled with the one Mitchell painted. He says the artist captured him "perfectly," even though his lack of ears and a nose meant Mitchell had to paint "totally outside his box" to convey the soldier's character.

 "It's more than just a portrait, more than just a painting," Yarosh said. "It's a story."

 Museum volunteer Heidi Whitesel, 67, of Gainesville, Va., said it was fitting that the soldier's portrait hung among those of others who made a difference in history. Their achievements, she said, were often made possible by the sacrifice of those in the military.

 "He's transformed his personal tragedy into an inspiration for others," she said. "It helps us to walk a little more in the shoes and have less fear and more respect."

 Some visitors chatted with Yarosh, who arrived before the museum opened. Others, though obviously moved by his likeness, seemed ill at ease when they realized he was nearby. Some glanced his way before moving to another gallery.

 For a few, the portrait was political, a reminder of the horrors of war and the wrongness in particular of the one in Iraq.

 "Every kid standing in line to go in the Army should look at this," said Bill Meyer, 72, a retiree from Baja, Mexico. "It makes me very glad I chose not to go in the service."

 Kathryn Chase, 58, of Austin, said, "It's wonderful someone is recording these tragic stories. I'm very opposed to that war but really respect the people sacrificing in it."

 Yarosh said he is "not a symbol of the war gone wrong" and remains "100 percent proud of my service" in Iraq. He hopes those who see his portrait come away with the same sense of pride.

 A group of parents and their home-schooled children from Woodbridge, Va., who were on a field trip shared Yarosh's pride and were also grateful for his sacrifice.

 "This reminds me that our life is so easy compared to the soldiers fighting the war on a daily basis," said Linene Kleppe, 36, whose husband is in the Air Force but whose job working with satellites has kept him off the battlefield. She asked her four children what they thought about the painting.

 "I don't really know," said daughter Madigan, 8. Staring more intently, she added, "He looks like he's been in a lot of battles.

 "He's just a guy with an Army shirt on," said her brother McCoy, 6. "He's happy. He's not scary." 

Artist seeks connection, understanding of wars

 By Sam Allis

 Globe Staff / November 29, 2009

AMHERST - Chris McGurk is number 31.

He sits motionless in a chair, his back straight. A thin afternoon light from the north pours through the windows to his right, illuminating his shaved head and strong face. He carries on a conversation as Matthew Mitchell paints his portrait - the latest in a series on war veterans that will grow to 100 when the artist is done.

McGurk, 34, was an Army squad leader in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is all warrior, a hard-body with a no-nonsense glint in his pale blue eyes and a landscape of tattoos that cover most of his arms.

“We triggered an ambush,’’ he says, staring straight ahead as Mitchell touches up a part of his face on the canvas. He and his squad were operating near the Pakistani border in September 2003. “There were 160 of them and 11 of us.’’ McGurk pauses. “The Chechens were the best fighters. The Pakistani military fired a mortar at us on purpose.’’

Born and raised in Minnesota, Mitchell, 39, began the project out of a gnawing concern that sitting safe and happy in Amherst, he was missing an elemental understanding of what was going on abroad.

“I felt something was wrong,’’ he says. “I was ill at ease. There was no connection between me and war. What disturbed me most was the way I continued my life as if nothing whatsoever were happening. I wanted to do something about it.’’

He came up with what he admits is a “traditional idea,’’ military portraiture. His subjects face frontally, a posture reserved for the powerful and the famous.

But he insists on something more, that the process be a conversation between artist and sitter. He takes pride that veterans he has painted, most of whose politics are very different from his, have found the studio to be a place of intimacy and trust.

And he includes statements from the subjects themselves to accompany the works on oil.

“I’m trying to make the person present in the room,’’ he says.

After graduating from art school in New York, Mitchell worked for a decade as a gaming illustrator, creating monsters of all stripes for computer games like “Dungeons and Dragons.’’ He is proud of these drawings, which he shows to a visitor in his studio. He also illustrated everything from a book on alternative medicine to a children’s magazine.

Yet the current project, which he calls “100 Faces of War Experience: Portraits & Words of Americans Who Served in Iraq and Afghanistan,’’ now consumes his life.

He began in 2005 with a 26-by-30-inch portrait of late Marine Lance Corporal Jeffrey Lucey of Belchertown, whose post-traumatic stress from his time in Iraq led to his suicide at 23. Mitchell had approached Lucey’s parents about painting a picture to honor the Marine, and they agreed, lending him photographs of their son. “I left thinking I could do something for them,’’ he recalls.One portrait became 30. There was no particular significance to the 100-portrait total, says Mitchell, other than it had a strong ring.

Indeed, the power of the project is in its size. The background in each portrait is a somber brown lit with a nimbus of white behind the figures. In this Mitchell says he was influenced by Rembrandt. The frontal poses he credits to the great photographer Richard Avedon, who often shot his subjects straight-on.

Many of the individual portraits are prosaic, yet together they create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Mitchell’s vision from the start has been to show an unbroken chain of former brothers in arms and offer a new way to contemplate the effects of war on the American psyche.

The plight of the veteran returning from war is timeless, says Robert Meagher, a Hampshire College professor and expert in ancient Greek drama who has provided historical context to Mitchell on the project.

“The Odysseus who returns from Troy is broken,’’ says Meagher. “Heracles comes home and murders his own family. Heracles is full of shame, guilt, and despair,’’ Meagher continues. “A fellow veteran helps him in his recovery. That’s how veterans are able to make it through the rest of their lives. They rely on one another.’’

Mitchell is also trying to present as diverse a group of subjects as he can. With McGurk, there are now 27 men and four women, one of whom is a civilian, from all four branches of the military, including four African-Americans, four Latinos, one Asian, and one mixed race/Native American, from 17 states.

The most famous portrait so far is hanging until next summer in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. It is number 23, a rendering of retired Army Sergeant Richard Yarosh that was a finalist in a portrait competition there.

Yarosh, 27, was severely burned over 60 percent of his body from an explosion in Iraq on Sept. 1, 2006. His face is unrecognizable from the one he had for the first 24 years of his life. He has undergone more than 35 operations. Yet he didn’t hesitate when asked to sit for Mitchell. “Five seconds and I said yes,’’ he recalled by phone from his home in Windsor, N.Y. “I’m not afraid of what I look like, to put my picture out there.’’

He adds: “I didn’t know what the finished product was going to be like. Matt captured the pride I have. I’m not angry and spiteful, I’m proud and happy.’’

Mitchell scours veterans organizations and volunteer groups, and he relies on word of mouth to locate veterans to paint. He found Yarosh at a medical center in San Antonio.

“Faces’’ has been exhibited at about 20 small sites, largely in New England. The pieces are not for sale, and there is no way to see the work in total other than in his small studio, or digitally at www.100facesofwarexperience.org. Mitchell has five on a wall and the rest stored there. He hopes all the pieces will eventually be seen somewhere within the US Capitol complex.

“I am happy to do this because it’s something useful,’’ he says. “I’ve helped bridge a big gulf between the general public and those people carrying out American foreign policy abroad.’’

Yet Mitchell estimates it will take three more years to finish; the project has all but bankrupted him. Three foundations and a few private donors helped at the beginning, but that money ran out. He and his wife, Rebecca, then took out an equity loan on their house in Amherst and eventually went through that, too. He figures to need another $200,000. In the meantime, he has painted portraits of people and pets for money to get by, and he has sold some of his illustrations on eBay.

Usually Mitchell has two sittings with a subject and has to finish the work from memory, or with the aid of photographs. Not so with McGurk, who is here for the last of three lengthy sittings.

Before they began, McGurk provided the 250-word statement that would go with his portrait. These can be about anything - letters home, contemplative assessments of their military experience, wartime memories.

McGurk’s packs a wallop:

“The taste of raw sewage and dust fills my mouth and the sounds of gunfire, children playing, and explosions echo like a dull headache inside my head . . . I would have to say a part of my soul was left in Iraq and I know that I will never be able to get it back.’’

Mitchell paints as the conversation between artist and subject trails off. McGurk is silent now. There’s a stillness in the room. Portrait 31 is almost done.

Sam Allis can be reached at allis@globe.com



SAN ANTONIO  Retired Army Sgt. Richard Yarosh has gotten used to the stares. His face is blanketed in knotty scar tissue. His nose tip is missing. His ears are gone, as is part of his right leg. His fingers are permanently bent and rigid.
 
All is the result of an explosion in Iraq that doused him in fuel and fire three years ago.

"I know people are curious," he said. "They’ll stop in their tracks and look. I guess I can understand. I probably would have stared, too."
 
Soon, a lot more people will be staring at Yarosh’s face but in a very different way: A life-sized oil painting of him will go on display at the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington later this month. The portrait, by Matthew Mitchell, is a finalist in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, which recognizes modern portraiture at the gallery known for its collection of notable Americans.
 
The gallery received more than 3,300 entries. Many are less conventional portraits, including video and photos, but others, like that of Yarosh, draw strength from the traditional head-and-shoulders composition, said curator Brandon Fortune.
 
Mitchell’s use of the style  historically reserved for nobility, a high-ranking military officer or a president, not a disfigured soldier in an Army T-shirt  democratizes such paintings, Fortune said.
 
"The portrait is clearly meant to honor him. I think that contributes to the gravity of the presentation," she said.
The Yarosh painting is part of a series of portraits by Mitchell begun four years ago, when he set out to paint 100 military personnel or others who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. With 30 completed so far, each of the portraits is 26-by-30 inches with roughly the same head-and-shoulders framing. Yarosh’s portrait is No. 23.
 
"There’s a huge amount of people who have been deeply touched by these wars in America, and these wars are obviously some of the most formative events in the world," said Mitchell. "Yet, most people in America don’t need to pay attention to these wars whatsoever. They don’t feel compelled."

This photo released by Matthew Mitchell shows a life-sized oil portrait of Retired Army Sgt. Richard Yarosh, painted by Mitchell. The portrait is a finalist in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition.  Mitchell’s “100 Faces of War Experience” project, of which Yarosh’s portrait is part, is sponsored by the VETERANS EDUCATION PROJECT, Amherst MA.

The 38-year-old Mitchell, of Amherst, Mass., asks each of his subjects to write a brief description of his or her experience to go with the portraits. Yarosh’s includes the line: "That day started the same as every other day, but that day has never ended."
 
The day was Sept. 1, 2006, and Yarosh was manning the turret of a Bradley assault vehicle, patrolling a road that he’d been on "a million times." Only this time, the vehicle hit an explosive device. The fuel tank blew, and Yarosh was instantly covered in flames.
He took a blind jump from the top of the vehicle, breaking his leg and severing an artery that would eventually force an amputation. He rolled around in the dirt, but with so much fuel, he couldn’t get the fire out. He lay there, next to the burning vehicle, and gave up.
 
"I wasn’t in pain. I could accept the fact that I was going to go. This was how the Lord would take me," he said.
But for reasons he still can’t explain, Yarosh rolled to his right one more time and suddenly fell into a canal, where the flames were extinguished. Fellow soldiers pulled him from the water even as his body armor disintegrated into ash, and he survived. One of the other soldiers in the vehicle did not; Sgt. Luis Montes died about a week after the blast.
 
Yarosh, now 27, spent more than two years in full-time treatment and rehabilitation at Brooke Army Medical Center, home of the Army’s only burn unit. A public affairs officer who had been contacted by Mitchell connected the two men.
 
Yarosh, who moved back to Windsor, N.Y., after his retirement in January, concedes he was a little uneasy when he sat for the portrait because he worried about how an artist, likely to be more liberal, might depict him. Still, Yarosh agreed because he thought having his portrait done would be "super cool."
He sat for sessions over two days. Mitchell developed the basic outline during the sittings and took photos and video to complete the portrait later.
 
The artist, who makes his living in part by doing traditional commission work, said Yarosh’s injuries left the soldier without the typical landmarks  nose, ears and other features  that help an artist see a person’s character.
 
But somehow, "I felt it was done when I felt I could see his personality. Still, that’s a big mystery to me. I don’t know how it happens," he said.
 
Yarosh was astonished when he saw the completed portrait.
 
"It was perfect. I couldn’t believe that he captured me," he said. "It captures my pride. I’m proud of the way I look. I’m proud of the reason for the way I look."
 
The winner of the competition will be announced on Oct. 22, with a top-prize of $25,000 and the opportunity to do a commissioned work for the gallery’s permanent collection. The exhibit of 49 finalists, including Yarosh’s portrait, opens on Oct. 23 and will be on display until August.