San Antonio, Oct 20 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Retired Army Sgt. Richard Yarosh face is very different following an explosion in Iraq. A life-sized oil painting of him will be put on display at the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington later this month. The portrait, which is painted by Matthew Mitchell, is a finalist in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition.

Retired Army Sgt. Richard Yarosh’s face is blanketed in knotty dreadful looking scar tissue. His nose tip is missing. His ears are gone, and so is his right leg. His fingers are permanently bent and rigid.

“I know people are curious,” he said. “They’ll stop in their tracks and look. I guess I can understand. I probably would have stared, too.”

“Mitchell’s use of the style-historically reserved for nobility, a high-ranking military officer or a president, not a disfigured soldier in an Army T-shirt-democratizes such paintings”, curator Brandon Fortune said.

“The portrait is clearly meant to honor him. I think that contributes to the gravity of the presentation,” she said

“There’s a huge amount of people who have been deeply touched by these wars in America, and these wars are obviously some of the most formative events in the world,” said Mitchell. “Yet, most people in America don’t need to pay attention to these wars whatsoever. They don’t feel compelled.”