Semelroth's portrait, like any real art, does not offer decided clues or set conclusions. It offers a personality, concealed beneath an assumed persona, and leaves it to the viewer to formulate or discard questions. There are no decisive conclusions. The artist traveled to Michigan for the expressed purpose of rendering this piece. One of life's contradictions that egalitarianism cannot acknowledge, much less accommodate, is that equality is a theological postulate, not a material or genetic reality.
Some people have stronger or more vigorous or more complex personalities.
Or they just differ from the conventional expectations. Semelroth often seeks out or chooses his sitters with an eye to what they can reveal. The model for this portrait, in the recent past, has undergone a sex change operation. The artist's instincts present a wealth of human histories worthy of Balzac. The artist himself noted that the sitter bears no resemblance to Presley, other than the costumes he favors.