Painting Cardinals:

When New York artist Alex Melamid watched the funeral of Pope John Paul II on TV in 2005, he was struck by the way the cardinals all looked the same — as iconic dignitaries in red vestments.

This year, Melamid has set up his easel in Rome. He is hoping to get below the surface image of cardinals and other church figures by painting their portraits.

"Cardinals should be seen as individuals. I think they have something to communicate, and that’s what I want to capture in my art," Melamid said.

On an afternoon in late February, Melamid was working in his studio on a portrait of Portuguese Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins. The cardinal sat on a wooden chair, wearing scarlet robes and a gold and ivory pectoral cross.

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A native of Russia, Melamid emigrated to Israel and then the United States in 1978, where he and a colleague developed a form of conceptual art that took provocative aim at Soviet realism.

More recently, he gained attention when he taught elephants how to paint, in a nonprofit venture that funds a save-the-elephant program in Thailand.