From the Archives: Fictional Portraits, 2005-06
Stripey Lady. Mixed media on found fabric, 2005 by Sarah Atlee.
Mask Lady 2. Ink on paper (sketchbook page), 2005-06 by Sarah Atlee.
Yellow Girls. Mixed media on canvas, 2005 by Sarah Atlee.
Brideshead Revisited, Revisited. Oil on found fabric, 2005 by Sarah Atlee.
Found on Flickr: In Extasis by Tim Lowly
In Extasis, acrylic on panel, 2002 by Tim Lowly. Click image to view source.
Once again, I celebrate Flickr as a showcase for emerging and established artists alike, in all visual media. This wonderful painting by Tim Lowly (his website is here) is accompanied by a description written by Karen Halvorsen-Screck in 2002. You can read the full essay here, but this is my favorite part:
In Ekstasis, for instance, seems to reveal one of Temma's fleeting expressions of happiness, or what appears to be happiness. I know that she is cortically blind, yet here I see her seeing something above and beyond me and my ken. In fact, she appears to be gazing at radiance, or releasing a radiance within. It is impossible to know for sure, and much of my response to In Ekstasis depends on my emotional perspective in the moment of looking.
I got the same feeling looking at this image, the feeling that I was seeing someone seeing something that I don't see. It reminds me of that fundamental paradox of portraiture, that the inanimate image of the subject is a reflection of my own act of seeing.
Tim Lowly is represented by Koplin Del Rio Gallery in Culver City, California.
See what else I've Found on Flickr.
This post is part of NaBloPoMo for July 2009.
Romy, Ink on Paper, 2009
Romy, pigma micron on Rives BFK, 22 x 28 inches, 2009. Click image to see it on Flickr.
This portrait of romy owens (whom you may have read about here) was created for the Seeing Other People show earlier this year. This piece will also be in the 24 Works On Paper show.
Yes, it did take a long time, about 40 hours.
Special thanks to Kelsey Karper for getting the photo for me.
Leigh, by Paho, by Sarah
Leigh, by Paho, by Sarah. Acrylic on found fabric, 6.5 x 7 inches, 2009.05.14
Click the image to visit it on Flickr.
Being a gallery artist means scheduling shows months or even years ahead of time, which means I am more or less under deadline all the time (even if that deadline is a long way off). That's good for me, I work well with a fixed timeline. But sometimes I get bogged down in the middle of a series and need to change gears.
That's where Leigh came from. In a fit of frustration the other day, I pulled out some small canvases and went to work getting wet paint all over them. This painting is from a photo of Leigh Merrill taken by Paho Mann (two friends of mine from college).
Illustration Friday: Pale
Anonymous Niece, acrylic and colored pencil on Rives BFK, 2009. Click image to see full-size.
To learn more about Illustration Friday, click here.
Anonymous Niece was created for Seeing Other People, a show of contemporary portraiture by Oklahoma Artists. The show hangs in the OKC Underground Invited Artists Gallery from January to April 2009. There will be an opening reception this coming Thursday, January 22, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. Please join us!
To create this fictional portrait, I worked from several photographic sources. My primary source was a picture I found in a stack of old family photos. There is no information on the photograph identifying the subject, just the name of the portrait studio: Jamiesons Studios, 3A High Street, Wrexham. (A quick search tells me that Wrexham is in northeast Wales, the country my family came from two generations ago. So it is likely the girl in the photograph is a distant relative.)
Following is a list of movies I listened to (on headphones, from my portable dvd player) while I worked on Anonymous Niece.