Soulless

This painting took a long time, it's a little more experimental and freeform and to me, it was more of a practice than a complete, realised idea. Because of this, it has gone through many different iterations, once it got to the point where it's finished I just forgot about it, thinking maybe I'd come back to it. Then almost a year later I found it while cleaning out the studio, and because I didn't feel the need to add or change anything about it, I just called it finished. Technique-wise it's a lot more subtle in its skin textures than a lot of my other portraits, the characteristic strong, bold outlines are still here but the detail is a little more refined than a lot of my other work. Practicing and working with layers I wanted the background to come through and really show in the foreground as well. This is something that does pop up every now and then in my art, other than being symbolic of the relationship with the individual's relationship with the exterior world it also allows for some great layering and texture. This technique is also what helped name it. Soulless refers to something or someone lacking a soul. In the portrait itself, there are only empty sockets reflecting the material world and the individual appears to be almost an empty husk, just a casket of skin - drying out in the arid cold—an empty vessel holding nothing but the background. While I like the form and the textures formed by the gentler brush strokes I find the composition a little bit bland. I enjoy painting faces a lot, but my focus on making them the center of the work can sometimes lead to a pretty boring and stale composition in my opinion. Therefore I try to balance it with interesting movement, textures, and colours.