Shifting Realities
Painting series in which I combine realistic portraits with abstract elements of design such as varying opacities, limited color palettes, and representational shapes in order to realize aspects of someone’s inner world. I wanted to play between my two interests of color and design + figure painting.
In the first part of my series I created a portrait of myself with colorful shapes surrounding me, encapsulating myself in design elements. I created a dyptic abstract duo to join it, play with the color palette, and imagine the abstract world that my portrait belongs in.
Then I decided to create a new world, one of my classmate, Sewon. Sketching elements from his own artwork, I mainly used the element of goldfish and lose paint strokes that I loved. I transformed these elements to be more colorful to blend in my own artistic insterests. I then created Sewon’s portrait, immersed in this world of elements that I had sketched up.
For the final part of the series I decided to play digitally, using my digital artwork “Blue” as a base. I played with various different types of shapes and colors, interested in how each color palette and shape would bring the subject into a new context and world.
