Portrait commissions
artistmarketingresources.com/2015/11/28/how-to-commission-your-portrait-from-south-african-artist-lioda-conrad/
HOW TO COMMISSION YOUR PORTRAIT FROM SOUTH AFRICAN ARTIST LIODA CONRAD
Select your reference photos or create a new selfie, then chat with South African artist Lioda Conrad to discuss portrait ideas (Contact Lioda Conrad via email: liodac@gmail.com or Phone: +27 72 460 3222 ). Find Lioda Conrad on Facebook here.
Do you want her to create your portrait painting on canvas or paper? Decide on the materials and size for the finished portrait art during your consultation with the artist.
Provide your reference photo or photos to the artist so she can get to work and she will send you a work-in-progress photo!
Portraits Africa–based in Amsterdam, Netherlands–holds your international currency payment until the portrait is complete and delivered to you. Only then is the money is paid to artist. Contact Portraits Africa via email: editor@negativeentropy.net -or- by telephone: +31 20 672 78 06
While a portrait drawing on paper may require less time to complete, a painting on canvas will take more time. If you have an anniversary, birthday, or other date you’d like to receive the completed work, just let the artist know.
Final photos are sent to you for approval. The artist Lioda Conrad packages and ships the finished portrait to you.
Community amongst Artists
ARTISTS SUPPORT ARTISTS: SOUTH AFRICAN PAINTERS LIODA CONRAD AND BENON LUTAAYA
“Guess who bought one of my works in The African Crysalists series. The very gracious man himself Benon Lutaaya! Thank you and it was a pleasure to have created this work Benon reigns in Africa. He embodies all that is true ideology within art. Benon, a Great day spent with you exchanging passion of art, thoughts and laughter,” Lioda Conrad shared these thoughts and feelings recently on her Facebook page and tweeted them from her Twitter account.
Lioda is pleased and touched by Benon’s wonderful support of her as a fellow artist. Lioda said of the transaction and sale of her portrait painting (image below) to artist and subject Benon Lutaaya–“He said he wanted to buy it because it was stunning, but also because I had something more to convey thru my art and convey an important message about Africa and the beauty of its people.”
I’d gotten to know about Lioda Conrad’s portrait series via Dr. Keith McFarlane’s Portraits Africa here and when I featured her paintings in my Xposy magazine article Lioda Conrad’s Portraits of Contemporary African Artists.
Xposy Trending article
http://www.xposy.com/visual-arts/liodaconrads/
“I just really love his eclectic use of found objects and almost silly, whimsical yet enormously interesting Steampunk type designs. His face was one of those I knew I just had to express myself in, to show the beauty, strength and simplicity of idea withmaximal impact,” says South African painter Lioda Conrad about artist Cyrus Nganga Kabiru and her portrait paintings of him that include his unusual eyewear.

“It’s with Kenyan artist Cyrus that I started with the idea of a collection of African artistswho are shaping the future of Africa as an emerging artistic force du jour. I am currently in search of more inspiring African artists to add to my portraiture, which is an exhibition I am working towards next year.“

“I choose every face I do very carefully,” Lioda says. “I know immediately when I look at a face that it is one I want to bring to life and express myself with. I paint what feels right. I want to highlight not only the “unknown Africa” via my realistic haunting African faces,” another style of portraiture she works in, “but also the people who are trying as hard as I do to make a difference and create beauty in the world and who’s ideology align with mine, that art, beauty and the pursuit thereof is important and life affirming.”

Oil on Canvas
75x60cm
Another subject of her expressionistic portrait series, Chellah Tukuta Rancen, is a photographer based in Zambia. Lioda Conrad describes him as “an interesting person passionate about his work, that crosses over from fashion photography to artistic photography. His insight into life is both child-like, and wise… He and I have talked and exchanged ideas regarding imagery. We collaborated on the idea of putting his high fashion young models against older, traditionally dressed people to show some of the generational differences and cultural development.”

“Chellah has become a very successfully photographer and has undertaken and created the most beautiful imagery. But all in all, he has the biggest smile, works so hard at what he does and impressed me as someone who should become an “expression” of mine.”

Lioda Conrad selected Durban sculptor Nhlakanipho Ndimande as one of her subjects. Pictured below is the sculptor in his studio.

Lioda Conrad says of her process and techniques in creating her portraits of these artists, “I realize one thing and it forms a big part of the work. All of the emerging artists, I call The African Crysalists, I paint each one in a style that is representational of them or their works. As with Chellah, his photography is often in soft diffused light and so his portrait has the same quality to it. Cyrus’ work, his glasses as well as his own face has a very angular and pointed look to it, so the brush strokes of his portraits has sharper, clearer and more angular lines. With the artist Nhlakanipho, his sculptures are often made with a stone compound and are far rougher and heavier in style and feel, thus his portrait is done with broader strokes and more impasto work to it.”

Artist Benon Lutaaya, who is one of Africa’s most publicized and sought after contemporary artists, and recently featured in the ART-MOVIE-BOOK, is the subject of Lioda Conrad’s mixed media portrait on paper.


Oil on Fabriano paper with collage, Lioda Conrad
If you’d like to find out more about Lioda Conrad and view images of her realistic and expressionistic portraits, you can connect with her