One canvas each: the eleven subjects I painted only once

Eleven subjects, one canvas each

Twenty-four canvases, fifteen women. Some of them held for four or five paintings. Eleven held for exactly one, and this is what happened in each of those.

All eleven are oil on stretched canvas, signed, one of one, with a certificate of authenticity. Where there is a print, it is a signed edition of no more than fifty; the canvas itself stays one of one.

Dana (Black Bikini): where the series begins

One of the first ones. There was no idea behind this canvas, and I am not going to pretend there was.

At that point I was still working out what I actually wanted to look at for weeks on end. Not what would sell, not what it meant. Just which images kept me at an easel and which ones let go after two days. This one held.

Everything since has come out of that question, so this is where the series begins even though it looks like it belongs somewhere in the middle. That is why a canvas with a single painting behind it is the most important object on this page: not because it is the best one, but because the entire method was worked out on it. Dana Hamm has one painting and the series has her fingerprints all over it.

Kindly (On Gold): the one that does not perform

Almost every image I save is aimed outward. Made to be seen, and good at it. That is the premise of the whole series.

Kindly (On Gold) is the exception. It is turned in on itself, and I am still not entirely sure I was meant to be looking. Whatever is happening is happening on the inside, and it is not mild. That is what kept me at it for weeks: not the surface of the image, but the fact that it does not perform.

One canvas was enough because the thing I was after was in that one image and nowhere else. There was no second picture of the same kind to go back to. Kindly Myers is the page for this one.

Dakota (Pink Bikini): the size is the argument

There is a detail in her face that I saw before I saw anything else, and for a while it was the only thing I could see. That is why this canvas exists.

Dakota (Pink Bikini) is also one of the largest paintings I have made, which matters more than it sounds. At full size the angle does something to you that a photograph of the painting cannot reproduce. You have to be in front of it.

That is an awkward thing to write on a website, where everything you are looking at is a photograph of a painting. It is also the truest sentence about this particular canvas, so it stays. Dakota James is the page for it.

Marisol (Bubblegum): two things that will not settle

There is a child’s gesture in this picture and nothing else about it is childlike.

The two refuse to sit together. I painted Marisol (Bubblegum) to find out which one wins, and after several weeks neither had. If anything, the small playful thing makes the rest stranger rather than softer, which is the opposite of what I expected when I started.

A painting that does not resolve is not a failed painting. It is a painting that holds two things at once, which is one of the few jobs an object is better at than a picture. Marisol Yotta is the page for it.

Pandora (Dreaming in Blue): all three at once

Nothing in her face asks for anything.

She is looking away, eyes almost closed. Subtle, elegant, and completely undefended. All of the innocence is in that look.

Then there is the gown, which is open, and a body it is not covering, and a posture that knows considerably more than the face lets on.

Weeks in front of that and it never once held still. Innocence turns into seduction, seduction turns into wanting. I have never worked out how one image does all three at the same time. It is still doing it, and now it is doing it at you instead of at me.

Pandora Kaaki is the page for it.

Elisa (Appetite): ought not to work

There is a combination in this image that ought to be unpleasant and somehow is not.

That is the entire reason I could not leave it alone. Something here is close to repellent and completely compelling at the same time, and weeks of oil paint did not separate the two.

Elisa Brandani is the page for it.

Veronika (American Girl): two things added

There are two things in this painting that were not in the photograph Veronika published.

One of them you can find if you look properly. The other does not exist in any image of this work, including the one you are looking at now. It is only there if the canvas is in front of you, and once you have seen it the hat and the denim stop meaning what you assumed they meant.

I am not going to say more than that. It took me weeks to arrive at it and about four seconds to give away, so I would rather you had it the first way.

Veronika Rajek is the page for it.

Dailey (Illustrated): where the body turns

Dailey is one of the few women here I have actually stood in front of. Small, stubborn, and considerably tougher than her size suggests.

Get a line wrong where the body turns and the whole thing sits on top of her like a sticker. That is where the weeks went. It is also the only part of this painting I would want you to look at twice.

Dailey Danique is the page for it.

Katrina (Gold Leaf): the refusal in it

Katrina is shot from below, which makes her taller than you whether you like it or not.

The white top is the only cold thing in the picture. Everything around it runs warm. What is nearly visible underneath it stays nearly visible, and that is the whole photograph.

The gold is real gold leaf, not paint. There is no gold in oil paint, and whatever you build with it is a pile of decisions pretending to be something it cannot be. I do not ask it to pretend any more.

The weeks went into her face and got nowhere. She is looking away and there are sunglasses in between, and together they put her out of reach, close to arrogant. I kept trying to take that out of her and I never managed it. So it stopped with the refusal still in it.

Katrina Moreno is the page for it.

Sharina (Blue Nights): eyes closed

Her eyes are closed. Everything else in this canvas is moving.

The whole picture is blue, put down with the knife more than the brush, in strokes that go every direction except the one she is lying in. The only warm thing in it is her skin, and the only loud thing is her mouth.

Twice the paint runs straight across her, as if the light in the room flickered. That stayed in.

Sharina van der Vliet is the page for it.

Mikayla (Hot Summer): she looks back

She looks straight back at whoever is standing in front of the canvas, and she is in no hurry to stop.

Almost everything around her is one purple, put down with the knife and left rough. The bikini is the same colour as the wall behind her, so what stands out is not what she is wearing but her skin and the light in her hair.

It is called Hot Summer. The purple is cool; the look is not.

Mikayla Demaiter is the page for it.

Why once is not less

Painting someone twice is not a promotion, and painting her once is not a lesser result.

A canvas stops when I am finished with it, not when it is. The image has been dealt with, it no longer pulls at me, and I go on to the next one. With most subjects that happens once. With Riae it happened five times, because the archive still had more of her in it and the pull came back, and what her first four canvases made visible is a different article about a different situation.

These eleven settled in one. Dana held long enough to build a method on. Kindly had one image of that kind and no second. Dakota needed a size rather than a sequence. Marisol was a question that stayed open at full scale. Pandora is still doing three things at once, and Elisa two that ought not to go together. Veronika has something in her that only the canvas shows, Dailey a turn that took weeks, Katrina a refusal that would not come out. Sharina closed her eyes in a picture that keeps moving, and Mikayla looks straight back.

One practical consequence: none of these has a companion piece, so nothing is missing when you buy one. And this list describes the state of the studio now rather than a category. If a second canvas of one of these subjects ever turns up, she moves to the other article and this one gets shorter.

Where to see them

Each subject has a page with her name on it, the source photograph credited, and the work shown at size: Dana Hamm, Kindly Myers, Dakota James, Marisol Yotta, Pandora Kaaki, Elisa Brandani, Veronika Rajek, Dailey Danique, Katrina Moreno, Sharina van der Vliet and Mikayla Demaiter.

The full index of everybody in the series is the women in Painted Idols, and all the paintings sit in one place. What each of these women is written to about, and what that does and does not settle, is in do the women know.

Questions people ask

Which subjects in Painted Idols were painted only once?

Dana Hamm, Dakota James, Kindly Myers and Marisol Yotta. One canvas each, oil on stretched canvas, signed and one of one. Three are 120 x 80 cm and one is 100 x 80 cm.

Are there prints of these paintings?

Of seven of them. Pandora, Elisa, Veronika, Dailey, Katrina, Sharina and Mikayla each also exist as a signed print. Dana, Kindly, Dakota and Marisol do not; those originals are the only versions that exist.

Does painting someone once mean the painting is less important?

No. A canvas stops when the painter is finished with it, and with most subjects that happens once. Dana (Black Bikini) is one of the first paintings in the series and the one everything since came out of.

Which painting did the series start with?

Dana (Black Bikini). There was no idea behind it, and at that point the question was simply which images kept the painter at an easel and which let go after two days. That one held, and the method came out of it.