Local artist Pamela Masik publicly unveiled today the first of an eventual 69 portraits of women missing from the DTES since the mid-1990s as a part of her "Forgotten Faces" project.

The portraits, of which Masik has completed 59, are based on the pictures used for Missing posters for the women. Five of the women have been found alive and well since the posters went up, while the remains of another 26 were found on Robert William Pickton's farm in Port Coquitlam. The portrait revealed today was that of Mona Wilson, who disappeared from the area in Dec. 2001 at the age of 26. Her remains were found on Pickton's farm on Feb. 5, 2002.

Some of the pictures the massive eight by 10 ft portraits are based on are police file photos, while others show the women at happier times. Regardless of the women's expressions, the paintings (which I admit I have only seen on Masik's website) cannot be described as anything less than haunting.

Masik plans to finish her project by 2011 and told the Vancouver Sun she plans to show the pieces "at a major public institution." In the meantime she says proceeds from the sale of her landscape paintings are going towards creating an art program for women at the Union Gospel Mission in the DTES.