Lyle Kessler

'Orphans' reflects unconscious elements in myself that were, at the time, indigestible and butting up against each other in my psyche; issues I wasn't really in touch with but was trying to put into a dramatic framework.

The thrill of a photo-realist painter is if you get really close to the painting, it looks just like a photograph. Whereas in my case, if you get close to my paintings, they totally fall apart - so I'm about as far from a photo-realist as it gets.