HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

This illustration is one of the many fast-as-hell pieces, made with gradients, for my Graduate School Portfolio. I found myself running low on time (and reference images) and needed to come up with something fast.

Helpers for my graduate portfolio were few and far in between, but I was lucky enough to get some guidance from a great professor of mine at NYU.

Before working with my professor, I had put little thought into WHY I did these paintings and what effect they may have on my viewers. I most of all never really thought about why I use celebrities as references for portraits.

I guess through art, the viewer gets to experience someone they would never normally be able to experience. After all, isn't that how we experience most celebrities? Usually through a medium, whether it be photography or a painting, but rarely as a true physical representation. Through art, we get the chance to connect with a very real person through a very unreal medium.

Wrestling with these thoughts made my head hurt, and drove me bat crazy. But in the end, I'm glad my professor challenged me and made me think: Why... Why am I doing this? Why do I make these paintings? And of all the people and things I could draw, why this particular person?

I think it's something to consider when dealing with art and expression. It may not be an easy question to answer, but hey, maybe there doesn't have to be an answer