A tale of two portraits

Since January, Ringling College of Art and Design student Nahman L’Hrar has created two portraits.

Both depicted world leaders and were created using the same medium for the same event.

But one was not supposed to exist.

Every year, Ringling College of Art and Design students submit portfolios in hopes of being selected as a Ringling Town Hall Lecture Series student artist.

Five students are selected and paired with one of the five speakers to create and present a portrait in person.

L’Hrar was paired with former Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan.

“He was my top choice of all the people that were coming,” L’Hrar said. “He’s an extremely accomplished person. He has a knack for finding things that will aid the populations that really need it.”

L’Hrar got to work creating his portrait. Because he created it digitally in Photoshop, L’Hrar first needed to create a digital sculpture of Annan’s head.

Because Ringling Town Hall artists don’t have the luxury of meeting their subjects in person until after they’re finished, they comb through dozens of online photos to familiarize themselves with their subject.

“For us, it was a weird form of sculpting,” L’Hrar said.

The sculpting alone took L’Hrar 20 hours. The next step, creating the digital painting with digital brushstrokes, took another 15.

And then L’Hrar got an email from faculty member Valerie Strenk: “I need to see you in my office immediately.”

He assumed the worst. “I don’t know what I did, but it was a good portrait,” L’Hrar thought as he rushed to see Strenk.

But it wasn’t the portrait that was the issue. It was its subject.

Annan cancelled his Town Hall appearance citing illness, sending organizers into a lurch and L’Hrar back to the drawing board.

A Ringling Town Hall speaker hasn’t canceled since 2014. It presented an administrative and artistic challenge. Ringling needed a new speaker — and a new portrait. 

For L’Hrar, the situation was more personal: the honor of presenting his portrait to Annan was now an impossibility. 

“I didn’t have a picture to work off of so I don’t know if I made it right. I just had to construct his skull from nothing, so it’s a very stressful moment.”

But L’Hrar had a new portrait to create — that of the 56th Mexican president, Felipe Calderon, who spoke on March 22.

The work took 20 hours.

“Mr. Calderon was a little easier,” L’Hrar said. “I guess I had already done the whole process with Kofi Annan of figuring out how to get the bone structure.”

But for L’Hrar, creating the portrait, even creating two portraits, was the easy part of being a Town Hall artist.

The hard part is coming face to face with his subject.

“I didn’t have a picture to work off of so I don’t know if I made it right,” L’Hrar said. “I just had to construct his skull from nothing, so it’s a very stressful moment.”

On the morning of March 22, before Calderon took the stage at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, L’Hrar and others gathered for the portrait’s unveiling. 

Cameras clicked, but L’Hrar wasn’t fazed. He had one thing in mind.

“I’ll be able to tell (if he likes it) immediately,” L’Hrar said.

He took a black cloth off the easel and then waited.

Calderon looked at the portrait, smiled broadly and shook L’Hrar’s hand.

L’Hrar had his moment — a moment he will always value, but also one he will never have with Annan.

For now, Annan’s portrait remains in limbo. RCLA Town Hall has committed to sending him L’Hrar’s portrait, but the artist likely never get that face-to-face moment with his first choice. 

He’ll probably never hear what Annan has to say, but it’s hard for him to be disappointed.

“I’m pretty darn happy to meet Calderon. I got to do both portraits,” L’Hrar said. “So that’s, I mean double the fun.”