Face to Face

I draw on my experience of painting portraits to reflect on the Basque diaspora today. Whilst living in different countries, I have painted Basque individuals that I have met through Basque organizations, through common friends in the Basque Country, or through “non-Basque” people who introduce us presuming that as fellow Basques we have something in common. We are thus brought together through the networks that typically define a diaspora. At the same time, Basque identity in the diaspora, as I have come to understand - and paint - it, is a personal and contextual experience. In this article, I offer further - textual - information about the individuals I originally intended to just portray in paint, as part of the effort to render more richly today’s plural picture of the Basque diaspora.