Description of Work

I excel in portraits, and I love doing them! I can draw in graphite near photorealistic faces, but in the last few years I started drawing exaggerated faces in marker as a challenge to myself to stray from the norm, then in marker and colored pencils. Since then, I have been doing distorted faces in colored pencils only. I’ve also started doing a series in oils. I love the rich buttery texture I get with working with oils.

My current work has become much more emotional in tone, however I find my portraits more serious than my abstracts, which are more playful and soothing.

CV

https://www.ravencreature.com/shows

soon, my pretties

Words

Artist Statement

I make portraits of both imaginary and real people. I make abstracts of texture and emotion. I use mostly oils, colored pencils, and graphite.

I make portraits because I find beauty and chaos in faces. I love expressing troubled expressions, seeking quiet and seeing secret emotions instead. I make abstracts because in the absence of faces and people and the hubris of this world, I want people to be absorbed into my paint. I bleed out emotions through my fingers into the canvas and paper.

My process for a single, successful piece starts in a dream or in a fragment of a thought. For example, my piece, “Fog on the Mississippi” was born driving through Audubon Park parallel to the Mississippi River. I was having a stressful day, and when I looked out the window, my breath caught in my throat and I knew I needed to express that moment. It was eerie, quiet, and thick. The painting took nearly two years to complete – I had to let it “simmer” for a year in between. My painting, “Overcoming Adversity”, was created from my anger and overwhelming nerve of the current political climate and was finished in five days.