09th Sep 2011
Basic Sunflower Portrait
Basic Sunflower Portrait is another artwork in my continuing investigation of black )on white background) vs. color strokes to create portraits of people, places, flora, fauna and things (like USA currency bills).
I have been told since I first entered the High School of Music and Art that color is one of my strong suits. Making images without color is like being on a severe diet or fast, it almost physically hurt when I began with the first Essence Portrait, which was of Andy Warhol several years ago.
Even when I have studied art or made sketches I always envision the color I will be adding eventually. Now with the Basic Essence Portraits and images (you can see this as a portrait of a sunflower, I am concentrating of creating works in black and white that can stand on their own, without color, but to which color can be added.
As a school girl, before I began any formal art education, I hung out a lot in the great museums and galleries of NYC, where I “discovered” van Gogh and Rouault, both who often outline their forms in a dark color. Later Warhol’s silk-screens, with their strong black images and colored paints added their influence.
My Essence Portrait works take a next step as while my black strokes are also used to physically define the form(s) of the image they are the very importance of it due to their symbols, which are always the original Torah font letters of a Bible text. For me, the strokes are always paramount. Strokes are the intrinsic and essential reality of any painting, and that emulates the reality that pre-particles or energy is the intrinsic and essential reality of our physical universe.
Watch for a new version — in color — of this image coming soon to this blog.
Basic Sunflower Portrait (Proverbs 31:10-31 – A Woman of Valor)
By Judy Rey Wasserman
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