René Porter is an award-winning realist artist from Los Angeles whose practice spans oil painting and charcoal drawing. A graduate of Columbus College of Art & Design, she works across portraiture, still life, figures and cityscapes, using light to shape the mood, setting and emotional pull of each composition.
Porter’s work is defined by smooth surfaces, intricate detail and a romantic, sensual sensibility. Influenced early on by her father’s love of photography and drawing, and encouraged by her mother’s skill as a seamstress, she creates images that move beyond outward appearance to explore the character, atmosphere and intrinsic beauty of her subjects.
In this Q&A for The Flux Review, Porter reflects on her creative journey, the role of light and nature in her work, and her desire to create paintings and drawings that resonate with feeling, vitality and connection. Her work has received recognition from organisations including Oil Painters of America, American Women Artists and The Beverly Hills Art Show, and is held in corporate and private collections across the United States.
Are you self-taught, or did you undertake formal artistic training?
Before attending Columbus College of Art & Design (CCAD) on scholarship, I studied privately with Maureen Hayes, a formally trained artist from the UK and a close family friend. During my senior year of high school, she introduced me to a wide range of artistic mediums and helped me build the portfolio that ultimately opened the door to formal art training at CCAD. I earned a BFA in Illustration after attending CCAD.
How would you define your visual language or conceptual approach?
I define my visual language through highly realistic, large-scale figurative portraiture that uses precision and scale to create emotional and psychological intensity. My latest series is deeply collaborative with each of my models. Each drag queen brings their own artistry, performance, and self-construction into the painting, and I see my role as both interpreter and recorder of that expression. I’m interested in the intersection of performance, identity, and transformation, especially within queer and drag culture. While the work is technically realism, the paintings are really about presence, vulnerability, theatricality, and the ways identity is constructed and seen. The scale allows the viewer to physically confront the subject rather than simply observe it. Ultimately, I see these paintings as acts of preservation: recording the artistry, beauty and cultural significance of drag on canvas as part of a living history that deserves monumentality and permanence.
Can you describe your creative process from conception to completion?
My creative process begins through collaboration and conversation with each drag artist, learning about their persona, performance, and visual identity. I ask each model how they want to be immortalised. The result has been fascinating and inspiring. I develop photographic references and compositions that emphasise presence, scale, and theatricality, approaching each painting as both a portrait and a collaborative document of their artistry.
From there, I build the painting through layers of detailed observation and surface refinement, focusing on texture, gesture, makeup, costume, and expression. The slow, realist process mirrors the labour and transformation within drag itself. Ultimately, the finished work becomes both a contemporary portrait and a historical record, preserving the artistry and cultural significance of drag on a monumental scale.
Does narrative, symbolism, or storytelling play a role within your work?
Narrative and storytelling play an important role in my work through the individuality of each drag artist and the identities they construct through performance. Every painting contains elements of transformation, vulnerability, strength, and self-invention, allowing the subject’s personal and artistic narrative to shape the image. Symbolism emerges through costume, makeup, pose, gesture, and theatrical presentation, which function not only as visual spectacle but as expressions of identity and cultural history. While the paintings are grounded in realism, they are also about preserving the emotional and symbolic presence of drag as both a personal and collective experience.
Which artists have most influenced you historically or contemporarily and why?
Historically, the artists who have influenced me most are John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, and John William Waterhouse. I’m drawn to Sargent’s ability to create psychological presence and monumentality through portraiture, as well as his command of light, texture, and gesture. From Cassatt, I connect to the intimacy and humanity within her figures and her sensitivity to personal experience and identity. Waterhouse’s influence comes through his sense of atmosphere, symbolism, and theatrical narrative. Together, these artists inform the way I approach realism, emotional presence, and storytelling within my own large-scale paintings.
What personal, cultural, or environmental influences shape your practice?
With my “Slay the Canvas” series, my practice is shaped by queer culture, drag performance, and the relationships I build through collaboration with each drag artist I paint. I’m influenced by the ways identity can be constructed, performed, and transformed, and by the emotional vulnerability and strength that exist within drag culture.
Culturally, I’m interested in preserving drag as an important artistic and historical practice that deserves permanence and monumentality within fine art. Personally, I’m drawn to portraiture as a way of documenting presence, individuality, and lived experience.
Where is your studio based, and how does the space inform your creativity?
My studio is based out of my home, where I work in a space filled with abundant natural light. Natural light is essential to my process, and I work exclusively with it because I feel it allows the colours in my paintings to remain more truthful to both my reference material and my lived memory of time spent with the models. The environment creates a quiet and more intimate atmosphere that supports the observational and collaborative nature of my work. Because my paintings focus so heavily on realism, presence, and subtle shifts in colour and emotion, the consistency and honesty of natural light plays a major role in how I build the image and connect to the subject.
Do you have any rituals or rhythms that anchor your studio practice?
Because I balance my fine art practice with a design business that is also based out of my home, my studio rhythm is very structured around natural light. I typically dedicate the early mornings and late evenings to design work so I can spend the daylight hours focused on painting. Working this way has become an important ritual within my practice. Since I rely entirely on natural light, the changing light throughout the day helps guide both my schedule and my connection to the work.
What bodies of work or projects are you currently developing?
I am currently developing multiple bodies of work simultaneously, including an ongoing drag portrait series and a new celebrity portrait series. Both projects continue my interest in large-scale realism, identity, performance, and cultural presence through portraiture.
Alongside these works, I hope to resume my cocktail series within the next year, which explores atmosphere, ritual, and social experience through still life imagery. While each series differs in subject matter, they are all connected through my focus on observation, realism, and the emotional and symbolic presence of the subject.
Where can collectors encounter or acquire your work?
Collectors can encounter and enquire about my work through Cicada Fine Art, where I am currently represented, as well as through exhibitions and organizations including FLUX Exhibition and American Women Artists. These spaces have provided opportunities to exhibit my large-scale realist paintings within both contemporary and figurative art contexts.
