Portrait of an Artist (Serj Tankian-esque)

I am reinvigorating my art practice as best as can while I resettle from a personal upheaval. Sometimes my heart seems to move forward ahead of me and practically beats outside of my chest, especially in my creative life, while my physical form maintains the more mundane aspects of life. My visual art is no different. I rush to keep up to that which my heart seems to want to express. More often than not, it is music that fuels me and things have changed a lot for me over the years, but that one thing has not. I still find the best and most powerful inspiration within music and the people who create it. 

I don't do portraits often. I don't take portrait commissions at all anymore as I find them too stressful, but I do still paint what my heart tells me to paint. For whatever reason, the desire to paint a portrait of Serj Tankian of System of a Down, among numerous other things, came through. I know exactly why. I wanted a strong man in my home. I wanted the presence of a man whose values and ideals align with my own in a very powerful way. I guess its sort of like casting a spell of protection over my home. As this painting hangs on the wall near the window, it's presence is formidable. It practically demands every little atom in the room stand to attention while "he" assesses the status of things. I don't have a (living) dad, nor a husband, and I wouldn't say I have a boyfriend either though I have been seeing someone, however, a portrait of Serj Tankian will have  to suffice and fulfill those duties that a man would otherwise fill. Or so I like to imagine. More than all of that is the fact that I love his music and the resonance it creates.