Artist Statement

 

Portraiture has been my main area of research and testing ground for my practice. The act of observing and recording the face in one of the oldest genres of drawing/painting - this is relevant to me as we are always attracted to faces and the idea of eye contact, you can read a lot from a person from their eyes and facial and body expressions. However, our gaze can always be disrupted by the idea of modern life and personal sense. I am more focused on the idea of the quiet time of looking at the portrait and face and less of the space around it or the background. I am interested in the inclusion of my home and making the work personal in that sense, incorporating events that have happened in Northern Ireland and how that has, in turn, affected me, socially and culturally. This then can link into how for me it can be more of what the face is to project than the actual idea of the surrounding setting, this makes me feel like me as the creator, and also the viewer in a sense can have a better almost attraction to the image and make it something that draws people in to see it, for an almost more subliminal image.

 

I am also looking at how the drawing connects and also the personal sense to it and does the actual look of the portrait affect the viewer or is it more so the meaning behind it and the process rather than the visual or the aesthetics of the work and how I can exchange and experiment with direct representation. I have mainly been looking at materials such as pen drawings on paper to just see the process of the work - however, I am now looking more into painting and mainly acrylic with other textures such as the material it is painted on. I am doing this because I think that is a way for my work to develop and I feel like the painting aspect shows almost more time and production put into the portraits.