French artist discovers US by painting a stranger a week

BOSTON (AP) — Every Friday for a year, French artist Aurélie Galois (orally gahl-WAH') painted a portrait of a stranger as a way to get acquainted with her adoptive city of Boston.

The results of her experiment — all 52 spontaneous oil paintings, plus Galois' handwritten vignettes about each of her subjects — have created a buzz in Boston.

Galois began the project in May 2014, not long after moving to the city. She says committing to painting a portrait of an ordinary Bostonian every Friday for the next 12 months poked holes in her own preconceptions about Americans.

Galois says every painting broke down a stereotype about U.S. culture.

The collection, "Friday Face," is on display through July at the French Cultural Center in Boston.