In a video posted on Instagram with 18.7 million views, Maia Williamson sculpted a portrait of New York City-based model Austin Holmes.
She captioned her reel, “Just finished this sixteen hour portrait. I’m so excited to be back at the @grandcentralatelier for another year in their sculpture program. Portraits are one of my favorite things to sculpt and I had a lot of fun with this one. Special thanks to the amazing model @austinholmes82.”
Williamson is a sculpture student at Grand Central Atelier, an art school in Queens, New York. The school was founded by realist painter Jacob Collins, who also founded The Grand Central Academy of Art and the Hudson River Fellowship, according to his website.
Grand Central Atelier describes its origins, explaining it “sprang from a group of visionary artists who gathered in Jacob Collins’ studio in the 1990s. Collectively, these artists envisioned an aesthetic sensibility motivated by works from Raphael to Ingres. This inspired a method rooted in traditions pre-dating the 19th century and the advent of photography.”
It continues, “Our existence forges the newest link in an unbroken 600-year-old tradition of artists contributing works of art untouched by modernism, inspired by the direct observation of nature.”