1490 cigarette break_1024

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on August 12, 2018 at 10:13am

Curator’s Comments:  

This new piece, Cigarette Break, offers a similar twisting tension I’ve admired in your earlier pieces. The brushstrokes and lines are active throughout the portrait, including the acidic yellow-green background. His blue-black hair pushes away from his intense face, while connecting the dark thin outline along the outer contours of his torso.  I also enjoy the articulation of anatomy in the subject’s hand and face.  The casual gesture is natural, as is three-quarter turn away from the center of the picture plane. This makes the figure seem at once familiar and heightened in intensity through the color palette. As a singular subject the narrative quality in the work is underplayed, especially considering the closely cropped boundary. I keep coming back to this portrait, and seeing what appears to be influence by Egon Schiele in the raw, expressive gesture.