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Cody Pryseski is a Baltimore-based artist specializing in portrait and gurative oil paintings. He takes a humanist approach to painting, believing in the value of classical, traditional training and techniques. Inspiration is key, but then you have to put in the work. His attention to detail and quality compels him to continually re-work his canvases, until he achieves the right mood. The goal is to capture the personality, even the psychology, of his subject.

Willem de Kooning said, “Flesh is the reason why oil painting was invented.” Pryseski uses the impasto technique, thickly layering his gures with oil paint. This brings additional texture to the work, allowing for the artist to manipulate the play of light and rendering the gure more expressive. I’ve drawn knowl edge and inspiration from Lucian Freud, Jenny Saville, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Chuck Close, František Kupka and Stephen Conroy. (whom he met when he accidentally stumbled into Close’s SoHo gallery). But his work is most strongly in uenced by Lucien Freud. Cody saw Freud’s’ rst U.S. show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1993. The well-worn brochure from that show remains in his studio today, always close at hand for inspiration.

Cody grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. He graduated from MICA in 1996 with a BFA and maintains a studio in Fells Point.