Lynne St. Clare Foster’s portraits for the

HERO ART PROJECT

The Directory of Illustration is proud to highlight the work of Lynne St. Clare Foster for the Hero Art Project, presented by Arthouse.NYC. Lynne is the spokesperson for the project and she created three beautiful portraits honoring front-line workers who died during the pandemic.

About the Hero Art Project: The Hero Art Project is an art exhibit honoring healthcare workers from around the world who have lost their lives while fighting COVID-19 and selflessly saving the lives of thousands of their fellow citizens. The Hero Art Project pairs members of Arthouse.NYC’s artistic community with family members of doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers who died from COVID-19. Susannah Perlman, founder and curator of the digital gallery Arthouse.NYC, lost her mother—a former New York City healthcare worker—to Covid in December 2021. Now she wants to honor the many healthcare workers who died during Covid with The Hero Art Project.

The exhibition of these portraits launched nationally on November 10th last year at the National Mall in Washington D.C. It was contained in a tiny-house gallery—named “Marla,” after Perlman’s mother. After wrapping up in D.C. on November 28th, the show has been traveling around the country. The portraits can also be viewed on the heroartproject.org website, each paired with a biography of the fallen healthcare hero.

The project was featured on NPR, Forbes, NBC and Fox 5 News.

Photo Credit © Catie Dull/NPR

ISABELLE PAPADIMITRIOU

Respiratory Therapist, Baylor Scott & White Institute for Rehabilitation, Dallas, TX

“Lynne captured my mom’s spirit beautifully. I am so honored to have met the artist behind such a thoughtful, personal memorial and tribute to my mom.”

~ Fiana Garza Tulip

NOEL SINKIAT, RN

Howard University Hospital, Washington, D.C.

For her digital work representing Washington nurse Noel Sinkiat, Lynne animated Sinkiat’s shirt and the background because “it makes it feel like he’s alive. What I wanted to do is incorporate not just the portrait, just the head … I try to bring in bits and pieces of their world, their life, their culture.”

~ Lynne St. Clare Foster

ALEYAMMA JOHN, RN

Queens Hospital Center in New York City, NY

In her portrait of Indian-born Aleyamma John, Lynne depicts rays shooting out from the nurse’s head. “She’s almost like an angel.” ~ Lynne St. Clare Foster

This portrait was also installed as a projection on a building in Chelsea on October 10, 2020. The Brave of Heart Fund ® and Arthouse.NYC presented The Hero Art Project as a public art installation that featured 29 rotating portraits that were displayed in five windows on the ground floor at the southeast corner of the iconic New York Life Building. Lynne’s portrait was one of the featured portraits displayed.

About the Artist: Lynne St. Clare Foster lives and works in New York City. She holds a BFA from Pratt and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts. Her illustrations are published monthly in Brooklyn based newspaper, The Indypendent and have been included in “Artists Against the War.” In 2011 she participated with other photographers documenting Cuban life, culminating in 2 shows, “Cuba- the Remainders” and “Art and Protest.” Her solo show in Kuala Lumpar Malaysia entitled “And then Comes a Dream” presented a diverse universe to the Malaysian community. She is presently in a group show at the University of Malaya. Her illustration “If I Was Made of Cake I’d Eat Myself Before Someone Else Could” has recently been accepted into the Society of Illustrators LA Annual show. Lynne is also a professor at Pratt Institute and City College in NYC.

“Choosing the portrait as the psychological symbol throughout my body of work, my goal is for the audience to view each image as a way to reveal layers of concealment. ‘Conceptual Portrait,’ where idea and form converge, is where I translate raw emotion into a visual image, [and I’m] thus able to enlighten, amuse, or sometimes even disturb.”