Aria/Ennis

Over the past few weeks at the National Academy I continued my exploration of figurative abstraction with acrylic paint on large canvases.

Our models were Aria and Ennis, both of whom were so physically perfect that the thought of rendering them in a classical realist manner seemed, well, just a bit too obvious and predictable.

So for Aria's portrait I used the glitch art of Kon Trubkovich as my starting point, and for Ennis, the digital experiments of Sergio Albiac.

The weird thing about combining realism with abstraction is that you're forced to think in two distinct ways, i.e., getting the drawing and anatomy right, and then rendering the abstraction in a compelling and convincing manner. Sort of like dancing classical ballet to rock music. Or staging a Mozart opera in modern dress.

It's a different mindset. But hey, why not. We'll see where this goes.