LYNN — Portrait artist Bobbie Bush has been in the business for more than 25 years, specializing in portrait photography. Now, after the COVID pandemic adversely affected her photography, she has turned her focus towards painting.

“I had a busy fall/holiday season, which was almost all photography at the time. And then the pandemic hit, and that’s when I did this incredible pivot to paintings,” Bush said. “Because, I was like, I can’t photograph people in person so I have to have them send me their pictures.”

Instead of accepting defeat due to the inability to photograph people, Bush saw this as her opportunity to rebrand.

Although she still does some photography, Bush’s main medium is using a computer program to paint and transform small, grainy photographs sent to her, into large prints that resemble oil paintings. Once printed, Bush will go over the pieces with oil paints and glaze to add dimension and seal her work.

“What I’m doing, people don’t necessarily know (it) can be done,” Bush said.

Once Bush receives the photo, she contacts her clients to figure out their back stories, the importance of the subjects, and what they’re looking for in the piece. 

She said her journey with the medium started when somebody came up to her at a meeting.

“I was doing a presentation to other business owners, and explaining about my painting process and how I do portraits in the studio … and someone came up to me and he goes, ‘so do you ever work with other people’s photos?’”

Bush continued, saying she told the man she hadn’t before. But, he gave her a tiny photo of him with his dad, who had passed away, that was taken on a flip phone. She took the photo and turned it into a 16-by-20-inch painting.

“This is the only photo he had of him and his dad when they were happy and smiling,” Bush said.

The man gifted the portrait to his grandparents.

Now, memorial photos are popular, and Bush says she receives a lot of requests for them. Currently, she’s working on a piece that features her client’s dog, Lily, who has died.

“We went through many versions before we got to (the finished piece), because the photos (the client) sent me were so bad,” Bush said about the picture quality. “The face is actually from one photo, the body’s from another one and then the shape of the ears and the texture I actually kind of pulled in from even other photos.”

When it comes to memorial pieces, Bush never gets upset about the fact that she’s painting somebody who’s passed away, as she knows the impact her work will have on her client.

“I’m always thinking about how it’s going to impact and make a difference for my client,” Bush said. “It’s not my loss, but I know how it impacts them. But having this face on their wall everyday after a loss, is like bringing that (person or animal) back into their home. That’s the cool part.”

One aspect of her work Bush really enjoys is the ability to take away unnecessary backgrounds and combine elements from multiple pictures and put them into one painting. 

“It’s storytelling. Taking away what’s not important and amplifying the most important part, and let everything else sort of fade,” she said.

Bush takes a lot of pride in her work, as she’s able to bring poor quality photographs to life in a way that most people didn’t expect was possible.

“The cool thing about what I do, is because it’s a hybrid of photography and painting, the likeness is what comes through. There’s no artistic license in terms of how somebody’s going to look,” Bush said.

Bush’s studio is located in Lynn. Her work and contact information can be found at bostonportraitartist.com