Portrait Painter Brings Famous Faces to Ocean City Arts Center

Oil painter Paul Fuentes brings his exhibit featuring people, places and things to the Ocean City Arts Center March 2 through March 31. A “Meet the Artist” reception will be held Friday, March 13, from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Fuentes will display several of his portraits of famous people, such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and actor John Wayne. In addition, he has painted beautiful images of flowers, landscapes and average people in settings such as the beach and city park. A graduate of The Tyler School of Art and Architecture of Temple University with a bachelor of fine arts, magna cum laude, Fuentes moved to New York where his paintings and illustrations appeared in national ads and publications including the New York Times. He worked in broadcast advertising and promotions at NBC and later HBO. He became a Creative Director at HBO where he began to direct. He soon opened his own production company with Screen Gems and directed hundreds of national commercials and campaigns. Fuentes says of his celebrity portraits, “Working with celebrities led to a series of portraits exploring identity and the nature of fame. People are often depicted in exaggerated costumes creating an obvious illusion.” He continued, “Replacing familiar contexts with new ones, history as we know it becomes fiction promoting viewers to create their own narratives about the works, suggesting that image and even our own identity is completely changeable.” Recent exhibitions by Fuentes are: 2019 Viridian Artists 30th International Juried Exhibition, New York; 2019 Philadelphia Sketch Club 11th Annual Juried Exhibition; 2019 Museum Gallery Group Show, Northfield, New Jersey; and 2019 Newport Beach Annual Art Exhibition, Newport Beach, California. He has also been featured in the 2018 Sotheby’s Ad Art Show in New York. For further information go to www.oceancityartscenter.org or call (609) 399-7628. Artist Paul Fuentes captures a pose by Hillary Clinton.