Evaluation for Portrait Paint

Gillian Lee Smith's mixed media



The artists I have selected for inspiration for my final piece are agnes-cecile, Gillian Lee Smith and Pilippe Pasqua. These three artist have a few things in common with each other, which I will use to motivation my final painting. Pasqua and agnes-cecile both work on huge scale paintings, and they base their portraits on emotion, using alot of colour, and combined with their discinctive painting techniques, they create an atmosphere that makes the viewer feel an intense emotion, relating with the portrait personally. Gillian also paints portraits, but her portraits are stimulated by the memories of peoples lives, often dementia sufferers and the elderly. Pasqua bases his subjects on vulnerable people such as the disabled, the young, the blind, transexual candidates etc. Gillians portraits are built up of mixed media such as paint, pastels and ink, creating dark melanchol pieces of ghostly time gone by memories.



agnes-cecile working on a wall piece for her recent solo exhibition




However, Gillian doesn't paint huge scale, usually her paintings are A2 size but they are like staring into a dark memory from someones mind, expressing isolation and emptiness, the painings are so vulnerable, just like the work of agnes-cecile and Pasqua, perfectly capturing the pain in the subjects eye, or the shame or the sadness, these three artists explore the fears and the secrets that we try and hide, these artists are expressing what is really under our skin. This idea really interests me, because it is what makes us feel uncomfortable, and everyone can relate to this subject. The large scale painings have an effect that I personally would like to use. Pasquas huge paintings seem to highlight the ugliness or the pain behind a person. He has an incredible distinct technique with his medium of oil paint, applying layer upon layer of unrealistic colour, pasting on frantic brush strokes of harsh colour and building up intense shadows. The fact that his paintings are so huge, literally magnifies this uncomfortable feeling and makes the viewer feel vulnerable, you just can't ignore his paintings.

Pasqua working on a recent painting

I always work on small scale pieces, and I would really like to come away from that and challange myself to start painting big scale, as I really like the immediate intense effect big pieces have on the viewer. To me, huge scale painings saturate the emotions behind a painting, and it leaves room for detail and distortion like Pasqua's paintings. I think it will be alot of fun and I can physically get involved in the painting, moving my arms and walking around it, even using a ladder if I do decide to go really big. I want the viewer to feel vulnerable. I do want to intensify emotions and thoughts. I want the viewer to feel like ther is no escape from my paintings, creating an uncomfortable reaction, and capturing emotions clearly through mixed media. I would like my next piece to be a chance for me to explore other media and techniques to create an emotional piece of art, not necesarily a portrait of someone who is sad, but perhapse turn the tables on something stereotypical and put the viewer in its place.