"The Artist and the Model"

Acrylic on Canvas
Size    11 x 17 "
 

             $595

Artist’s Comments    (Artist’s Comments are intended solely for those viewers who would appreciate more information on the motivations and processes involved in each painting.  They are not intended to direct how anyone might respond to or interpret my work.)

I was doing a photo study and drawings of Vicki, the model used in “Reflecting” (a painting which received the Finalist Award in the Brushstroke Magazine Portrait competition). I noticed her reflected, this time in a studio mirror, so I stood next to her and the idea of a double portrait was born.

Although the work is smaller than any of my previous portraits, I was pleased with the effect achieved. One day it may form the basis for a larger piece.

In the painting I have used approaches that appear in most of my studio works: a reorganization of light, color, and especially spatial clues. On a casual glance the painting may seem to be all in order, but a more careful observation tends to raise questions as to the actual placement of objects.

I became interested in spatial manipulation as a means of expression when I was in my 20s, working on a Masters degree assignment that introduced me to the depiction of space on a 2D surface. Now I use a variety of subtle manipulations in my art, hopefully to provide the addition of another dimension to ordinary images, a dimension suggesting a world of thoughts, events and meaning—a place where the concepts of change in human affairs can be hinted at.

Although change certainly seemed to be a big part of my unstable and poverty-filled growing up years, my work, residence and relationships, and overall life have been incredibly stable since I reached adulthood. Yet, somehow, for many years I have still enjoyed a sense of magic and wonder when suggesting the flux of human affairs. ‘The Artist and the Model’ is an expression of that wonder.