Self Portrait

Gottfried Helnwein influenced my painting of this piece as I strived to create a striking, realistic black and white painting of myself. This, like previous pieces is based on the idea of identity and a character who is unsure of his own identity. I chose text that roughly related to people being judged because of how they look and their identity. I painted onto a piece of wood that had been used as a painting board and because of that it had lots of paint and graffiti on it. I decided not to paint over this as when the piece was finished it looked like the painting is the fully form identity which has emerged from a frenzied imagination.

Sculptures

I created this life size head sculpture out of plasticine as using a non drying material meant that I could come back to this piece many times over a long period of time to add detail. I have been creating sculptures for a long time but from looking at the work of artists like Ron Mueck I have been able to see just how much detail it is possible to put into human portrait. I put as much detail as I could into this piece and I think it was worth it as it is a fantastic piece to photograph and it looks impressive as a standalone sculpture.

For several years I have enjoyed creating sculptures out of clay and plasticine and I especially like sculpting heads. This is a life size clay sculpture that I fitted with acrylic teeth and bandages. There is also a pocket television inside the mouth which when switched on shows static. I imagine this sculpture would look good in an old, abandoned building where it could be left with only the static of the television lighting it. This is one of my favourite pieces as I like how strange it is. I never really wanted to give the piece much of a meaning as I think that creating something strange to confuse people is very enjoyable. It also leaves the viewer to think of their own interpretations and I think that makes the piece more personal than having a meaning set in stone.

Character Drawing

This is a pen drawing of a character that I created. I have a series of drawings and t-shirt designs that include similar characters and a punk rock band asked me to create this particular drawing for their own album cover and posters. I enjoy creating works in series like this as I can clearly see my own development of ideas and I think they can look impressive when viewed together.

Life Drawing Work

I enjoy drawing from unconventional angles as I enjoy the challenge of learning how to adapt my drawing technique to accommodate this. In this piece I used charcoal and chalk to draw the life model from an extreme angle that hides a lot of the body. I really like the shading and highlights on the brown paper.

This is another life drawing that is from an interesting angle. I used pen in this piece to loosely imitate the line work of Egon Schiele, which allowed me to be slightly more loose and energetic with my own line work. I find the simplicity of this piece appealing.

This is one of my life drawing studies. For this image I intended to convey the idea of anger which is why I used red, black and blue oil pastels and lots of straight, jagged lines which I enjoyed as it allowed me to distort some of the features and put energy into the piece.