Interview with Katie O'Hagan, whose work "Life Raft" was selected as part of the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2013 exhibition. More on the Portrait Competition at http://portraitcompetition.si.edu Katie O'Hagan writes: "I painted Life Raft in 2011, during a time of great personal upheaval. During this period, I came to truly understand, for the first time, the vital role that art plays in my life. As most of the solid ground I had depended on seemed to erode away, my art emerged as the only thing keeping my head above water. I woke up one morning with this image in my head. I built the raft myself and spent the next couple of months completing the painting. It's a very literal image, and I felt quite exposed and not entirely comfortable making it at first. Now I see it as something positive to come out of a bad situation. It also marked a turning point in my work, as it has led to a move toward more personal paintings, beyond the straightforward portraiture I was doing before." --- "Life Raft" / Katie O'Hagan / Oil on canvas, 2011 / Collection of the artist Music: "Budding" by Broke for Free: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Gold_Can_Stay/Broke_For_Free_-_Gold_Can_Stay_-_01_Budding. https://soundcloud.com/broke-for-free Used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) License.