Blog
Invented Portraits
20/12/2017
My Instagram paintings based on chats with Indian artist Roshan Chabria have been very prioductive, first with the fast wallwork that included scraps of our conversations and shared images presented in boxes that echoed the forms found in Instagram. This led to adapting the box format to my portrait paintings, as the boxes look a little like the carte-de-visite popular in C19th with curving borders, so I have kept them a deep brown. Somehow it's easier to paint if I feel the paintings could at any moment morph into texts and conversations.
I've also been starting each new work with random brushstrokes and letting the subject emerge, forming itself through an accumulation of strokes until the patterns start to remind me of something. Introducing more colour helps with the composition, as there is something else for the brushstrokes to react with. I'm pleased that each 'portrait' came out looking androgenous and of non-specific, not fully human and a bit cartoony. I feels doors are opening.
I've also been starting each new work with random brushstrokes and letting the subject emerge, forming itself through an accumulation of strokes until the patterns start to remind me of something. Introducing more colour helps with the composition, as there is something else for the brushstrokes to react with. I'm pleased that each 'portrait' came out looking androgenous and of non-specific, not fully human and a bit cartoony. I feels doors are opening.
