Think of a person in your life who you hold very close to you, one of the people you love the most. Imagine looking at them, I mean really looking. Imagine the colors you see when they pop into your head, the feeling you get when their eyes meet yours, imagine how seeing their face after a long day would make you feel. What you feel and see when you look at the people you love: that is what I aim to capture in my work.
My concentration focuses on eye contact with another person and the expression of emotion, or lack thereof, conveyed through their gaze. My work evolves as the subjects drift farther out of the foreground, and farther out of my life specifically as a graduating high school senior. In depicting the intense and bittersweet sensation of letting go, I incorporated the technique of The Gaze as often observed in portraiture. In addition to my focus on the effects of displaying direct eye contact to convey emotion, I also focused a unique color palette for each piece to emanate the emotions I feel upon seeing that particular subject. The color palettes illustrate a harmonious balance between the subject and their figure ground through the unique combination of their intense focus and the aura around them. I aimed to gesturally depict the importance of the subjects in these larger oil paintings and digital renderings; drawn freehand on a tablet while using Photoshop CS4. Various pieces respectively demonstrate a decay in the background detail in order to draw focus to certain areas of the picture plane. The gradual distance created between the viewer and the subjects represents the ominous space left behind as the subjects retreat into dark color palettes and fading backgrounds to demonstrate their separation.
My concentration focuses on eye contact with another person and the expression of emotion, or lack thereof, conveyed through their gaze. My work evolves as the subjects drift farther out of the foreground, and farther out of my life specifically as a graduating high school senior. In depicting the intense and bittersweet sensation of letting go, I incorporated the technique of The Gaze as often observed in portraiture. In addition to my focus on the effects of displaying direct eye contact to convey emotion, I also focused a unique color palette for each piece to emanate the emotions I feel upon seeing that particular subject. The color palettes illustrate a harmonious balance between the subject and their figure ground through the unique combination of their intense focus and the aura around them. I aimed to gesturally depict the importance of the subjects in these larger oil paintings and digital renderings; drawn freehand on a tablet while using Photoshop CS4. Various pieces respectively demonstrate a decay in the background detail in order to draw focus to certain areas of the picture plane. The gradual distance created between the viewer and the subjects represents the ominous space left behind as the subjects retreat into dark color palettes and fading backgrounds to demonstrate their separation.