This is a fairly old piece and one of the Very, very rare paintings I’ve done of people. I don’t like using people in my artwork and portraits in particular are frustrating to me. I can paint a person, and it looks like a person. It even looks like the person it’s supposed to be. But it always seems to be missing that special something that really captures the essence of the person. Strangely, I don’t seem to have the same problem when I create portraits of animals. I’m not sure what the difference is there…

Anyway, this is an oil painting portrait of my grandparents (Oma and Opa are ‘grandma’ and ‘grandpa’ in German). I don’t remember the exact date—I painted it right before one of the times that I moved to the UK. I think it was the first time, so it’s probably from 1997.

After immigrating to the US from Germany, my Oma wanted to have a house full of oil paintings. She associated them with being well-off financially, I think. And actually, she Did end up having a house full of oil paintings, so I guess that dream was realized! I painted this portrait of my Oma and Opa as a gift for my Oma. What better gift for her than an oil painting, right? And it hung on the wall with all her family photos for years.

Oma passed away a few months ago, at almost 95 years old. She and I shared a birthday, which always seemed like a special thing. With my birthday coming up next week, I’ve been thinking about my Oma, so I thought I’d share this special piece in remembrance of her.

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