Monday, November 5, 2012

Patches



We are amalgams, the results of arbitrary confluences and unexpected social interactions.   How we perceive, identify, and define ourselves is related to all of these disparate parts having been put together in a kind of social cubism.  
This is the approach I have followed in creating these three portraits called Patches.  Originally I had drawn three similar but not identical portraits from the same point of view.  Then I cut them each into small squares , mixed the squares up, and randomly reassembled the pieces to form new inventions of the portraits,  with new identities, new narratives.  
Dating back to my earliest forays into art making I have been intrigued by the portrayal of the human face, what it evokes, and how and why it is represented.   Sometimes it approximates a likeness, other times it is a mere abstraction.  It can reveal.  It can conceal.  Or with a few strokes of a pen, pencil, brush, or collage, it can capture the essence and spirit of a subject.   I believe these portraits fall somewhere in between.  




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