Portrait Gallery's 2019 Outwin Competition winner is stop-motion animated piece

by Bruce Guthrie

The Outwin portrait competition -- something that the National Portrait Gallery sponsors every 3 years -- opened on Saturday with 46 finalists this year. They announced the winner of the competition at the media preview on Friday -- "A Portrait of Sarmiento Chávez" by Hugo Crosthwaite, stop-motion drawing animation (3:12 min.).

A stop-motion winner is a first for them. The current winning piece is shown in its entirety on that site -- https://portraitcompetition.si.edu/exhibition/2019-outwin-boochever-portrait-competition/portrait-berenice-sarmiento-chavez

Set to the soundtrack of a dissonant guitar and a raspy voice singing in Spanish, this animated video reveals the dreams and experiences of a young woman from Tijuana who seeks to take part in the American Dream. Black ink, gray wash, and white paint—applied by the invisible hand of the artist— take turns to expose Berenice Sarmiento Chávez's humble background and the threat of violence in her home country that pushed her to immigrate to the United States. The film suggests that the immigration journey is seeded with constant danger, especially for women and children.

This video is part of a series based on artist Hugo Crosthwaite's interviews with people who are living in or are passing through Tijuana. The resultant improvised drawings represent the collective memories and oral histories from that part of the Mexico-U.S. border.