Jon Sarkin | Portraits

November 2021

Many on Cape Ann are familiar with Jon Sarkin — contemporary Outsider Artist — and his abstracted drawings of cactuses, sailboats, and comic book characters; yet his vast body of work consists equally of a large number of portraits.

These works, being emotional rather than representational, capture the purity of feeling and mood. With strong homages to Caravaggio, Francis Bacon, and Van Gogh, Jon's unique vision and voice brings a fresh perspective on the time-honored tradition of portraiture.

Jon Sarkin is a wildly prolific artist, the result of a stroke and subsequent traumatic brain injury. His work has been exhibited in New York, Boston, Los Angeles; and Oxford, Liverpool and London UK. His work is in the collection of several prominent collectors, as well as The American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland; and the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Sarkin has been the subject of much media attention including: GQ, The New York Times, The New Yorker, BBC, and The Discovery Channel. He was the subject of a biography ‘Shadow Bright as Glass’ by Pulitzer Prize winning author Amy Ellis Nutt.