“How many portraits are made each day now, because of these?” asked Dick Goody, director of the OUAG and acting chair of the university’s Art Department.

“The Roving Eye: Aura and the Contemporary Portrait,” was an exhibition formally opened at Oakland University’s Art Gallery in January. Two artists who showcased their work at the exhibition have been shortlisted for the Turner Prize.

Awarded to one British artist under the age of 50 each year, the prize holds a prestigious rank in the world of art and design.

Curated by Dick Goody, this past winter’s exhibition explored works of international contemporary artists fixated with portraiture, either temporarily or permanently.

“What initially compelled me to do the portrait show was the idea of how we look at a work of art in a different way, when it’s making eye contact with us,” Goody said.

“I’m looking at you and your eyes, and you’re looking back at me. When you do that with a portrait, it closes the circle in a way. If the person isn’t looking at you, you can become a voyeur.  But if they’re looking at you, you’re having a different experience with a work of art, than when you’re looking at a ‘regular’ piece of art.”

David Shrigley and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye will be showing in the Turner Prize exhibition at Ebrington in Derry-Londonderry for the UK City of Culture 2013. The exhibition will open Oct. 23, and the jury-selected winner will be announced at an awards ceremony on Dec. 2.

Shrigley was nominated for his solo exhibition, “Brain Activity,” curated by Cliff Lawson of the Hayward Gallery, London. “Brain Activity” showcases the diversity of Shrigley’s work and offers satirical commentary on the absurdities of life and death.

This particular survey was the largest of the artist’s work to date, featuring drawings and paintings on paper, a variety of sculptures, several installations, sets of photographs, and a selection of animations.

Yiadom-Boakye was nominated for her exhibition, “Extracts and Verses,” at Chisenhale Gallery in London. Her figurative oil paintings are drawn from imagination, and her fictitious characters further allude to traditions of European portraiture.  She invents pre-histories for her subjects and seeks to raise questions about how pictures are read and interpreted, particularly in regards to black subjects.

According to Jacqueline Leow, Assistant to the Director and Registrar, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye also received the “Main Prize” of the “Future Generation Art Prize” in December 2012, which is an international award for artists 35 years old or younger.

“Portraiture has the great advantage of being captivating in ways that non-portrait artworks cannot. The contemplation of a sitter-less artwork tends to be a one-way trip. The work broadcasts. The receptors, i.e, you and me, capture the image/data of the work and then process and digest it. We consume. But we can never devour a portrait so completely, because we also communicate with it, and, therefore, initiate a relationship with it,” explained Goody. “Empathetically, we project our thoughts and feeling (through our eyes) back to the eyes of the sitter, because it is not just a work of art with which we are communing. We interact with the mind of the sitter.”