The bare bones of Portrait Study 8.18.23 was started as a study months ago and then abandoned. I picked it up again recently but was not satisfied with my initial result after working on it again. It felt too stiff and overwrought. I realized I was being too careful and calculated in painting it. I stripped it back to its early layer stages and then built it back up again, while attempting a looser more immediate approach. I'm much more satisfied with this final version.
My work Dissonant Harmony in Pink and Cyan will be among the featured works in the virtual exhibition ABRAZO: Embracing an Ocean presented by Verum Ultimum Gallery.
You can preview the works here https://www.verumultimumartgallery.com/projects-7-3 or enter the virtual gallery here: ENTER
Both of these pieces began as one image, which was to be an experiment in fracturing and "destroying" the figure within a darker color palette than I have been using. Partly in preparation for a future project idea I have. The process quickly grew from being a simple test to a proper piece, which then grew into two related but separate pieces. The images are also informed by things I was thinking about while working on them. One of which being the various ways society attempts to destroy individuality and self-expression, and the effect on the psyche of those of us who don't feel we fit in a certain mold.
Deconstructed Head in Pink, Red, and Blue began with the intention of being a quick study, but grew into a struggle, a learning experience, and a much more complicated piece. There was a point where I was very frustrated with it and wanted to abandon it. Then I got sick for a about a week or so. I returned to it afterward and saw what I had done in a more favorable light. I saw a new path forward for the piece. Something very different than what was originally intended. When I was finally completing it, while listening to a dark ambient mix, the sky outside was an apocalyptic orange hue, as smoke from the Canadian forest fires blanketed New York. In the end being forced to "step away" from the image for a while allowed me to come back and see it with new eyes. It wound up being the best thing for this particular piece.
Fragmentary (2022 rework) was recently published in the book, Voices of Tomorrow.
This study features a monochromatic figure, painted in blue tones, expressionless, with features that seem to shift and dissolve. For the last couple of years or so, I've been doing a lot of "studies" where I've been experimenting with different methods of combining digital painting with traditional elements within my artistic process. Lately I've been hitting upon a workflow and method that is allowing me to more accurately achieve what is in my head. There is something about this "fracturing" that (to me, at least) is evocative of so many different things.
The figure dissolves, or perhaps takes shape, in a distorted cacophony of pink, brown and light magenta hues, against a cyan void. Created with a combination of painted acrylic layers and coffee drips on paper, which were scanned and combined with many digital painted layers at low opacities, slowly building up the form. Multiple variations of "expressive" layers of abstracted elements were interlaced with the figure, some building off of, and distorting the original acrylic layers. These variations were combined, added, and subtracted, eventually creating a final composition.