Then, Baby!
A look back at earlier works from my portfolio
2014
2023
Trial and error and try again sort of defines my process for creating art. Depictions of human figures especially illustrates how widely disparate those efforts can turn out. I think most artists agree that the depiction of the human form is the most difficult skill to achieve. While realistic depictions may be the most technically difficult, I would argue that abstract or surreal depictions are just as artistically difficult. Failed efforts can simply look like nefarious blobs, and, yeah, I’ve produced my share.
But I’ve also come up with some good ones, like the two exhibited here. The first came from a tour a number of friends and I took of the Fox Theater in St. Louis. When our group gathered on stage and faced the auditorium, I stayed back and captured the full cast, then on the computer simplified the complex shapes and oversaturated the colors. The cast’s dark legs and feet on the lightly hued stage are identifiably human, but their forms blend into an amalgam with the colors of the auditorium they face – I’ve always liked the effect.
The later work is much more simplistic, but the figures are no less intricate, their surreal forms framed against the bland background they stand against. The straight lines of the walls and floor makes the complex human forms stand out even more as they just move from realism to surrealism.
Trial, error, try again, and succeed!
- CH
