For more 25 years Lionel and Kathy Sosa wowed the marketing world with their advertising company. Now they are focusing their tremendous talent on portrait painting and this month San Antonians can see their work in an exhibit called "Making Faces" at the Chamber of Commerce. An opening reception will be held Tuesday night at 5 p.m. The exhibit will be on display all month. On exhibit are over fifty small scale works, all close-up portraits. These "people are colorful in every sense of the word" says Lionel. "Participating in a show at the chamber is an amazing honor! Given who walks through those halls, the exposure is incredible. It might just be the most prestigious gallery in town," said Kathy. This is a quite a week for the creative couple. They presented Archbishop Gomez with a life-size portrait at his Farewell Mass Sunday at St. Mark the Evangelical Church. Lionel worked day and night for three weeks to complete the portrait which captured the Archbishop's sense of humor. The portrait will be on exhibit Tuesday night only at the Chamber opening reception of "Making Faces". Sosa paints in the realist style and is a student of one of the country's foremost realist portrait artists, Nelson Shanks of Philadelphia. Collectors and followers of Sosa's work say there is such a lifelike quality to his portraits, that one often gets the feeling that that the person, not just the canvas, is in the room. While Sosa has been an artist all his life, he only began oil painting 12 years ago. But he's brought the passion to his craft that made the firm he founded the largest Hispanic advertising agency in the U.S. Sosa sold his advertising firm and turned his attention to painting. His portrait of President George H.W. Bush hangs in the Bush Library Conference Center at the University Texas A & M at College Station. His portraits of vaqueros have been published in the book "Vaquero Real" and exhibited at the Witte Museum. His wife Kathy, who worked alongside him in his advertising firm, is also an artist and has exhibited with the Smithsonian Latino Center in Washington D.C. as well as locally at the Museo Alameda. "I began painting one day about 11 years ago by picking up a canvas that Lionel had lost interest in. I tell people that I probably never would have been a painter if he hadn't said yes, because I never would have had the courage to attack a blank canvas!," she explained.While the couple has radically different styles, they share a love for the human face and figure. They also share a gallery in Southtown. "In my portraits I try to convey the essence, personality, COLOR of the person, but not a likeness per se. That is what makes Lionel and me different. When he paints you, everyone knows it's you. When I paint you, people will ask "Is that you?? It amazes me when someone commissions a portrait because in doing so they're giving me permission to paint what I see, which is inevitably different from what they see. It's very cool actually!," said Kathy. Check out their different, colorful styles this month. "Making Faces" will be on display throughout May at The Greater Chamber of Commerce on 602 E. Commerce.
