I am Tom McGee, a contemporary painter working in northern California. My current body of work is called Fragment Portraits. This series consists of naturalistic facial portraits painted on panels designed to appear broken and incomplete.
The works are executed in acrylic paint. Tonal values and structural elements are developed through opaque grays and whites applied with small linear brush strokes, alternating with transparent color glazes. The palette is deliberately limited and muted, with emphasis placed on texture and form rather than chroma. The technique combines indirect painting methods associated with the Old Masters with a contemporary approach to figurative mark making.