In her seventh solo exhibition at Gallery Henoch, Sharon Sprung will exhibit recent figurative paintings alongside examples of noteworthy portrait commissions. Sprung’s talent and expertise were recognized in September at the White House unveiling of her portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama. Being commissioned to paint a White House portrait is an honor few artists share, and Sprung’s portrait will be installed in the presidential residence for generations to come. In her upcoming show, Passionate Jungles, Sprung continues to explore formal patterns of color, movement, and emotion to capture the boundless nature of the human condition.

“My paintings are a carefully observed negotiation, manipulated layer upon layer in order to create a work of art as equivalent as possible to the complexity of real life. I want the subject and its environment to collide through the use of echo and repetition to form a united composition.” Throughout her career, Sprung has tended to paint people that other artists may have overlooked—people of color, members of the LGBTQ community, individuals whose style is not mainstream. Whether it be a figurative painting or a commissioned portrait, she treats each painting as a shared vision, a visible biography to leave behind a visceral, breathing sense of the person. Focused inward, caught in a reflective moment, Sprung’s figures engage audiences in an expressively silent yet powerfully commanding way.

Sprung maintains her studio in Brooklyn and is an instructor at the Art Students League. Sprung was born in Glen Cove, New York in 1953 and studied at Cornell University, the National Academy of Design, and the Art Students League. Her paintings are in the collections of the White House, the US House of Representatives, Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Virginia, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Chase Manhattan Bank, Packer Collegiate Institute, and others.