Alisa's Studio: A Success

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

A Success

This past Sunday was the opening of my senior art show here at Earlham College. It was quite a success and the weather was perfect! We had a really great turn out. People, both students and faculty enjoyed looking at my work. They had a lot of fun pointing out the people they knew and comparing the drawings with the paintings. The photo on the left is just the paintings, but I will be posting the drawings shortly.
I am very proud of myself for how this project turned out. It was a lot of hard work, but the end result is exactly what I had in mind. I want to thank all of my models. I couldn't have completed this project without them.

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Artist Statement

Portraits are intriguing, complex, and invigorating. As a subject matter, portraits are exciting for viewers because they are able to immediately relate to what is being depicted. My intention with the works in this series is to represent people who have shaped my experience at Earlham in a realistic, yet expressive manner. Through these paintings and drawings, I wish to evoke in the viewer a sense of familiarity and connection.

I began to focus on portraits last year, working primarily from one photograph. Working from a photograph felt limiting and restraining to me. With the paintings in this current series, I felt it was imperative that I work from life. Working from life creates a strong sense of urgency that is not present when working from a photograph. This urgency results in a more expressive quality in the way I handle the paint. The strong light source and the bold background colors that are present in the paintings elevate the expressive quality.

During the development of this project, I looked to other portrait artists who paint in a similarly expressive manor. Lucian Freud was my initial source. I am intrigued by the way he handles the paint, specifically in his use of colors. I also looked at portraits by Alice Neel, particularly for her use of distortions.

The twelve paintings are the core of this project. The twelve corresponding drawings embody a different process and philosophy. Pencil is a very different medium from oil paint, and therefore allows for a more precise representation. Due to the character of this medium, I felt it was more appropriate to work from photographs for this portion of the project.

The way in which these pieces are arranged is evocative a yearbook. A yearbook represents a community and its members. Positioning the portraits in a grid follows this idea of community.

This series of work pays homage to twelve people who have influenced my time at Earlham. I also see this body of work as a evolution of my skill. It is a culmination of a year’s worth of learning about the human face.