Amy Kandall Captures Togetherness

What happens when a portrait painter and her sitters share time in the same space after a year of pandemic isolation? Truro-based artist Amy Kandall attempts to answer this question in a project titled “Movers, Shakers, and Makers.”

Over the past three months, Kandall invited 50 artists, educators, leaders, restaurateurs, and other familiar faces from the Outer Cape community to sit for her in her studio. “These are the people who make up who we are — the people who form this place and are formed by this place,” she says. Thirty of Kandall’s life-size portraits are being shown in an exhibit at the Provincetown Commons, 46 Bradford St., through Sept. 4, with an opening reception on Friday, Aug. 27, from 5 to 7 p.m.

Most of Kandall’s works feature pairs: couples, friends, family members, work partners. “I am interested in what happens when you paint people in relation to each other,” she explains, “when you try to capture their contrasting energies and the story of their connection.”

The portraits will be accompanied by QR codes that link the viewer to time-lapse videos showing the painting process from blank canvas to finished portrait. Known for working quickly, with broad, flowing brushstrokes and bright colors, Kandall completed each portrait in a single three-hour sitting. “Whatever happens in those three hours,” she emphasizes, “remains on the canvas as it is. Complete.” —Susannah Elisabeth Fulcher