Description

Featured in UWAG, as a part of Maggie's 4th year Fine Arts Studio Practice Exhibition Epilogue.

Portraits are said to be a representation of a person or object in a specific moment, but I believe there is much more to portraiture than just a capture of physical characteristics. Portraiture is a rendering of a person’s soul, experiences, memories, and emotions through a medium chosen by an artist. Humans can be judgemental beings and are quick to form opinions based upon first impressions, bias, ignorance, and experiences, many times without doing proper research on the subject. In my body of work, the viewer is invited to look beyond face value and investigate a subject’s true self. Through the use of a physical barrier, in this case, a covering over the face, a distortion of physical features are created, hiding emotion and facial detail. My goal is to give the viewer a chance to look at someone in a different light.

My work is highly intuitive and is inspired by my own thoughts, feelings, and experiences. I translate my emotions into paintings in hopes that others can relate and feel the emotions expressed. My use of fluorescent pigment was inspired by my previous work Take Me Seriously, where I first experimented with fluorescent paint and the interesting lighting effects it created. This birthed the idea for my current body of work. By giving the viewer the inability to see facial features, it allows them to look at the subject in a different light, creating a connection that may not have been present before.