Painting against the status quo: St. Mike’s student sheds light on historical inequalities in oil portraits through summer art research

In art museums around the world, you’ll find large oil portraits, mostly featuring royalty, military generals, presidents, and members of the upper echelons of society.

But some important – and often overlooked – people are missing.

Where are the farmers, garbage collectors, and other essential workers who have continued to keep the world running from the bottom up?

That, in essence, is the question Dominic Douglass ’27 explored through his art research this summer. Having worked in customer service at a grocery store for the past five years, he knows firsthand how some work can go unnoticed.

Dominic Douglass ’27 uses a technique called “underpainting” while creating oil portraits of underrepresented workers in Vermont. The work is part of his grant-funded summer research project during summer 2026. (Photo by Rylee Anderson ’27)

Now, Douglass, an English and Art & Design double major, is twisting the longtime narrative that only the nobility are worthy of being portrayed on canvas, instead depicting the underrepresented members of society in the traditional fashion of oil portraiture.

He is working on this research with Professor Mallory Breiner, Instructor of Fine Arts in the Art & Design Department, and was influenced through his work under Professor Will Mentor, Director of the Art & Design program.

“It was supposed to be acrylic painting, but he let me do my own thing,” Douglass said, referring to a class he took with Mentor. “My whole focus was just how to paint portraits the way they would traditionally.”

Telling stories through multiple media

Douglass is taking this practice a step further with his research: interviewing folks in the community who often go unseen, taking photos of them, and painting their portraits with oils.

An in-progress oil portrait by Dominic Douglass ’27, which he created as part of his grant-funded summer research project. (Photo by Rylee Anderson ’27)

“A lot of the time with essential workers, their job takes over them as a person,” Douglass said. “If you go in the grocery store or are walking through the halls, you don’t really pay attention to the cashiers or the janitors. My thing is trying to give them the space to be seen.”

Douglass, of course, isn’t the first artist in history to notice inequity in the representation of race, class, gender, and all forms in art. He has taken inspiration from a few of them, including Kehinde Wiley, who portrays contemporary Black figures in the composition of the Old Masters, and Alice Neel, a painter who works to represent people in her community, including women, people of color, queer people, and low-income individuals.

Even on social media, Douglass has found artists who share their work in this vein, like Devon Rodriguez, who posts person-on-the-street interviews and portraiture on TikTok.

While Douglass was inspired by these artists, his approach is unique. It is focused locally in Vermont and aims to tell these people’s stories through the art and the conversations he has with them. He even intends to include QR codes that link to the audio from these interviews, giving voice to his subjects.

For now, he spends the hot summer days (and some nights) in his art studio in Sloane, carefully recreating details from the reference images onto the stretched canvases.

Upcoming exhibit to feature student work

On Sept. 3, Douglass will be able to show off his work, displaying the three paintings in the McCarthy Art Gallery at the joint exhibit for all the summer art researchers. Not only will the wider St. Mike’s community see the portraits, but the subjects themselves have been invited.

“Some of the people that I’m doing, I know,” Douglass said. “Painting people that you know can be kind of scary because you want to make sure it looks like them. You don’t want them to show up and be like ‘Who is that?’”

Dominic Douglass ’27 poses for a photo outside of Sloane Hall where he is working on oil paintings as part of his grant-funded summer research. (Photo by Rylee Anderson ’27)

Douglass, however, is working hard to make sure these pieces are both accurate and have meaning. With help from Breiner, he is being thoughtful about every choice he makes, in hopes that these people will feel seen.

“Dominic is a skilled painter who has been deepening his practice throughout the Summer Research program,” Breiner said. “He has been studying traditional oil painting techniques of underpainting and glazing, which involves making a full grey-scale version of the painting (called a grisaille) and then adding thin layers of transparent color after it has dried. This method has been used in portraiture throughout art history for images of politicians, wealthy patrons, mythological narratives, and religious figures.”

Underpainting in black and white, flipping the canvas upside down to allow his brain to focus on the details, and spending hours perfecting each piece with the tiniest of brushes is all part of this process.

Dominic Douglass ’27 is creating oil paintings of underrepresented workers in Vermont as part of his grant-funded summer research project. (Photo by Rylee Anderson ’27)

“The power of Dominic’s project has been to apply this technique to portraits of working people from his own life, elevating them to an equal status through careful observation and intricate brushwork,” Breiner said.

Douglass recognizes this summer research not only as a chance to put his ideas into real work and allow these workers to be seen through art, but as a moment to prepare for his final year at St. Mike’s and his future after that.

“Being that it’s art-based, the fact that we’re given the opportunity to be in spaces and do research-type stuff is really cool,” Douglass said. “I haven’t heard a lot of other schools doing that type of thing. I’ll be taking senior art studio next semester where we do our own thing in the gallery, so (I’ll) be able to prep for that now and start thinking about how to actually implement an idea, and the process and outcome.”

Breiner also mentioned growth in Douglass’ work and sees the power in the work he’s doing.

“It has been a pleasure to work with Dominic this summer and watch him grow as an artist,” Breiner said. “He has a strong point of view, grounded in the experience of working-class people, that I believe will continue to inspire interesting and moving work.”

In the end, Douglass notes that while his research is helping him improve his skills and prepare for the future, it’s really about his subjects and making sure they’re given attention for all of their often unnoticed work.

“For me, this is the first time I’m actually getting paid to do art,” he said. “I just hope that it helps me figure out more what I want to do. The biggest thing with this project, though, was allowing people to be seen that aren’t usually seen.”