Still life with scientist

A nearly nine-foot-wide painting of Rockefeller president Paul Nurse, by acclaimed British artist Jason Brooks, has been made part of the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London. Mr. Brooks achieved a high level of precision by using acrylic paints and an airbrush, working from large-format photographs he took himself. From a distance, the painting is sharply defined, but close up it is made of abstracted forms, an attempt, in the artist’s words, “to get lost in somebody’s structure.” Jason Brooks studied at Cheltanham College of Art and Chelsea College of Art in London. He has won numerous prizes and exhibits regularly at Stellan Holm Gallery in New York.