Colleen Barry NYC Artist
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A new Ébauche: Tronie/Janus
🕑 Added 2025-08-25 13:00:11 +0000 UTCFor this new 11 x 14 panel, I’m layering a modern tronie of a popstar over the form of an ancient Janus bust. Janus is a Roman god, (he doesn’t have a Greek counterpart), and is always shown with two faces. He looks both backward and forward, keeper of thresholds, patron of beginnings and endings, presiding over every passage of time. The month of January takes its name from him.
The Romans placed Janus at their gates and doorways, because he symbolized both protection and transition: you could not step forward without his blessing. In sculpture, the Janus head has this haunting duality, a face turned to the past and another to the future
For this new 11 x 14 panel, I’m layering a modern tronie of a popstar over the form of an ancient Janus bust. Janus is a Roman god, (he doesn’t have a Greek counterpart), and is always shown with two faces. He looks both backward and forward—keeper of thresholds, patron of beginnings and endings, presiding over every passage of time. The month of January takes its name from him.
The Romans placed Janus at their gates and doorways, because he symbolized both protection and transition: you could not step forward without his blessing. In sculpture, the Janus head has this haunting duality, a face turned to the past and another to the future.
That duality resonates with how we look at celebrity culture today. A pop-star’s face is never singular: it’s a mask for the public, and at the same time a private self looking elsewhere. By placing a contemporary pop “tronie” over an ancient Janus, I’m asking what it means to stand at the threshold of image and identity: what’s revealed, what’s concealed, and how both past and present live together in one face.
Comments
colleen barry
Yes, I learned this convention from Jennie Saville, to cut off the top of the head, makes the work feel more monumental and more intimate, so yes, I say go for it
Vladan Dabić
Hi i have a question Seeing that the head is cut off at the top, in art school they always teach you to try to first get everything(composing) inside the paper without it falling out, later on you learn that you dont have to follow this rule and there is plenty of examples, when do you think this rule should be follow and broken, when does it feel natural? Sometimes i stop myself from cuting out parts of the body being afraid people would think i wasnt good enough to put everything in...What is your imput on this
