Stuffed Animal Portraits

In 2005, Mac created a series of 36 Stuffed Animal Portraits for his solo holiday show at Noah’s Restaurant, in Stonington, Connecticut. These paintings were conceived as an experiment in subjective perception and pictorial narrative, inspired by the comic Calvin & Hobbes.

Noah’s Restaurant

Hobbes by Mac Love

Mac began each painting with a sculpting paste foundation on canvas board. Once dry, he painted abstracted children’s portraits in oil using only his non-dominant left hand. Once this underpainting was done, Mac tried to imagine an animal character that these youthful spirits could embody, and painted them as “stuffed” with the underpainting’s personality and energy. “My hope was that the animal’s personality’s would be infused with the character underneath,” says Mac. “I was surprised by how well it seemed to work.”

The holiday show was a huge success. All of the available stuffed animal portraits sold, and the resounding feedback from visitors was that every animal seemed to exude a personality that went far beyond the surface. The only downside to this success was that Mac was not able to capture good pictures of each painting before they went home with the buyer. The images here are predominantly work-in-progress photos from before the exhibit. A valuable lesson learned.