FIGURES + PORTRAITS

Multicultural subject matter and art,  German Expressionism, influenced much of my study and experimentation with medium, subject matter, style in art school, art centers, independent project and series with the human figure. I studied the island art the expressionists were creating during the war and the printmaking by Die Brücke artists. Latin American men, authors, poets, and historical figures were influencers of or part of my subject matter in woodcut, monoprint, and etching. These pieces have all helped develop a way in which I continue to see and work. 

The figures I started painting with before art school were rarely caucasian and could be seen as some sort of exploitation by some or just that they were figures and images that allowed me to explore with paint and create. They were images from other individual's professional photography that allowed me to teach myself to paint with watercolor. Correct, white, caucasian skin not nearly as interesting as was any skin with color. I loved reading about these cultures and figures whom I was painting.

Art school allowed for the space to finally work with  beings of more diversified cultures more easily. Printmaking gave me an entire new way to allow for subject matter to take shape and change with the use of presses, acid baths, different papers, unique relief inks, solvents,... This allowed for a new translation of expression and change to subject matter with 'process'. 

Self portraits. I just let the medium take over and spent hours pushing and pulling distorted versions of myself