Terryl Best’s art is biographical, autobiographical, and reflexive. Her paintings and photographs are about those in the arts who continue to inspire her, herself, and the very nature and process of painting and photography. Immersed in a period of paying homage to her influences, Best presents Frida Kahlo, Chagall, Modigliani, O’Keeffe, Cezanne, Picasso, and others by painting portraits with scenes reflecting their artistic styles and personalities.

Once the paintings are complete, Best embarks on a second iteration of the art making process with her camera. Using the painting and carefully situated thematically related elements (fruit, flower filled vases, chess pieces), Best creates a photograph in which the foreground still life appears to merge into the background painting. As the viewer enters Best’s photographically staged and painted world, the photograph dissolves as a sheer visual portal between the rendered and the real.