This paper will analyse five artworks: Untitled (2013, Figure 1) by KwangHo Shin, Untitled (2014, Figure 2) by Ryan Hewett, Untitled (2016, Figure 3) by Antony Micallef, Untitled (2014, Figure 4) by Joshua Miels, Untitled (2014, Figure 5) by Ray Turner, respectively. Each of these artists is interested in recognising and presenting human emotion. Through their works, each artist reflects that people are interlinked and that emotions are much more significant, which suggests that individual identity has less importance. The fact that these images destroy all cultural and racial references, even the individual differences between us, is because the artists are interested in displaying emotions, depicting these emotions through abstract faces. In my work, I used the same approach as these artists to produce a series of eight colour paintings of abstract faces, which focused on communicating different types of emotions by manipulating colour, texture, layering depth, type of paintbrush, and different coloured backgrounds. Such pieces work to inspire audiences to recognise the complexity of human emotions, in order to know more about human beings.
South Korean artist KwangHo Shin uses an explosion of colour spots or paint marks inside the shape of a head to present humans’ different emotions. In Shin’s paintings, almost all the heads are based in abstract expressionism; he uses intense and vivacious oils with charcoal to distort the facial features of his subjects and challenge them psychologically. In his series of untitled paintings, Shin attempts to capture the complex relationship between the expression of emotion and the experience of the mind. He purposely refuses the description of accurate form and proportion in an effort to exceed conventional representation and in turn confronts a more visceral type of portraiture. In portraiture, one of the hardest tasks is capturing the essence of the person who is sitting for you; but for Shin, the very spirit and core of the sitter is communicated through the model’s eyes. Shin has stated that the eyes can be the heart of a human, with each eye having the power to lead viewers to feel different human emotions. It is through the eyes that people can also project their own faces or the faces of people they know onto the painting.
In KwangHo Shin’s work, Untitled (2013), below (Figure 1), a man’s head has been painted onto a canvas with a white background. This faceless portrait has an exaggerated style; a clear outline of the contours of a face with vivid primary colours mixed together from dark to light. The face is transformed into technicoloured and unicoloured landscapes. The portrait’s painting is double-layered: the darker/black colours, included in the eye and hair details, are underneath; while the lighter colours have been placed on top to highlight those parts that are usually invisible in human beings. Shin’s portraits are chaotic and breathtaking. Even with this feeling of chaos, every layer of paint is purposefully and carefully placed to communicate emotional expression, including any scratching or paint dripping. The paintings are not only to convey the inner psychology, but are also to remind the audience of the artist’s existence. Moreover, the other distorted facial characters somehow become the artist’s own self-portrait. painted in the white background. According to writer, Yu MyeongJin, “The fear of the blank canvas is dissolved as the colours take shape and are formed on the picture plane. This moment is the process of bringing out something from the Artist’s inner spirit – it is the climax of the creative energy”. In my own work, the portrait is also based on abstract style, utilising vivid colours to express various emotions through the facial features, with special attention on the eyes of the portrait.
Another famous portrait painter is Ryan Hewett. In his works, Hewett’s imagery is textured and richly hued, conveying both complexity and raw emotion, and demanding intelligence and consideration from its viewer. For Hewett, the portrait is not only for capturing the subject’s external likeness, but it is a portal to an inner journey of self-exploration. In order to free his creative process and produce a more realistic depiction, Hewett does not use sitters or models. Although photographs constitute his starting point, principally, he relies on the free-flowing processes of memory and creative imagination. In comparison with KwangHo Shin, however, the themes of Hewett’s portraits start out as self-portraits, but without any prejudice and attempt to evolve into these images on the canvas. Hewett’s work summarises the truism that the motivation of all art is ultimately based on the self. The images are transforming from realism to abstraction; his portraits suggest a tension between external depiction and what lies beneath. As such, Hewett discovers the polarities characteristic in the internal and external components of portraiture. He displays the binaries between self and other, revealing that always the twain shall meet. In Figure 2, Hewett used heavy impasto to create the appearance of a modelled rather than brushed piece, which is a special and highly expressive style developed with sculptural and textured surfaces. Besides, on the final layers, Hewett works with brush and palette knife to layer and to scrape in order to describe the shape and structure of face and body. The painting is notable by its flesh tones, which is also the first thick layer underneath, with flat florid reds and lead white. He works impulsively, without any primary sketch. At the beginning of his painting process, he quickly paints on the surface straight away through the paint oil for fear of the oil drying. According to this style of painting, an abstracted and active portrait with great verve is created. In his work, some figures are focused on South Africa’s troubled political past so that the portrait presents the complex emotions of politics. The background colours Hewett selects also reflect the complex emotion of each figure. In my own work, background colour will also be related to the colour of the figure to add further information and to help the audience deeply connect with and understand each emotion being communicated. Furthermore, the figures will be directly painted on top of the background straight away without any preliminary sketch, and the models will be taken from memory, regardless of whether they are historical figures or real-life contemporary figures.
Compared with the two artists discussed above, the design of Antony Micallef’s works can be likened to selfies; this is because he uses his own face as the raw intent to create a new portrait with unsettlingly violent, wildly intense elements to express different emotions. Micallef’s artwork presents social explanation as well as self-examination. His paintings are particularly thick, with some pictures being nearly two inches thick; the oil paint is caked onto the canvas, layer upon layer, creating almost three-dimensional images. According to Micallef, he actually attempts to create a sensual body that springs a soul or some other things, such as kind of personification. On the other hand, he wants to use the feature image of different textures to describe the feeling of emotion without explicitly narrating it.
In Figure 3, Micallef started the painting on the canvas, which was already painted in some dark or grey-tone colours, which also might be a background. In the middle of the canvas, there is a man who is looking up, his head to the left direction with the mouth opened slightly. However, Micallef has reduced each element of the individual features, such as flesh, hair, bone or muscle, which thus, become unrecognisable and messy. On the other hand, the brown colour has been mixed with light red oil paint suggesting dynamic activity in process. Furthermore, this evokes the image of a man who has had all his skin violently ripped off, allowing the viewer to clearly see all that lies beneath the surface Using painting tools, such as scrapers and palette knives, for instance, Micallef accurately screws the paints to further distort the expressed image in the hope of creating a picture that will “breathe” on its own. Even though this style does not meticulously depict the facial features, through the texture of a painting movement with black oil paint, the viewers can gauge the feelings and emotions being expressed. Moreover, in his painting, Micallef creates a respite like a surface with heavy oil paint to describe a figurative mass in front of a soft background. He uses the bleed with thick brushstrokes overlapping as the background, lighting a unique and authentic person to the audience. In my own work, the layering depth will be different for each painting in order to highlight the features of the portraits and clearly present the complex emotions. Additionally, anatomy will be used as the main style to depict the emotion; that is to say, following the texture of muscles for emotions, such as when people are laughing, for instance, will add a richly hued and in-depth layering to the expression of ideas.
Ray Turner is a contemporary artist who studies the human appearance. He has created hundreds of portraits, almost all of which are paintings depicted by impasto with vivid colour on a sheet of glass. Compared with the other artists discussed, Turner has some different painting styles; for example, he paints on glass rather than on canvas, and uses pastels instead of intense colour. Ray Turner’s recent series of paintings is entitled Population: Defaced. The main idea behind his artworks is to communicate to viewers that people hide many emotions, but when people face others, they can tell who a person is at the first moment. Even though people take a long time to deeply know each other’s emotions and personality, they still have a face in a moment’s notice to reveal the real side. Turner’s portrait series encourages the viewer to participate and to use their own experiences to interpret and feel what kind of person they are facing. The fourth image (Figure 4) is one painting from the Population: Defaced series. Turner’s paintings are called contemporary painterly oil painting on glass with a coloured film underneath. Turner’s series of paintings include many different portraits presenting various backgrounds and a diverse array of emotions. In another aspect, these images attempt to depict people’s internal emotions in a moment; in other words, there is a narrative style similar to that of photography capturing each image in a film.
In Figure 4, there is a weasel-faced man appearing in the middle of the glass with a yellow background. The man has short brown hair and his face has been divided into two parts by a red line from the middle of his forehead to the end of his nose. The eye on the left of his face has been defaced and is replaced by two vertical sweeping brushstrokes of orange and white, respectively. On the right side, Turner has used thick paint to depict the features of the portrait; on the left side, the forehead has been filled in with dusty blue and the cheek has been painted pink. The mouth has also been painted in two separate colours. Most attention has been focused on his eye even though just one has been painted. The green eyeball with a black pupil is very simply presented; however, it undoubtedly expresses a great deal of emotion, which is formalistic. Besides, the transparent thickness of the glass gives the figure’s silhouette thin shadows; it makes the painting’s gradation more distinct and strengthens the sense of visual space. In the background, behind the figure, there are fuzzy bookshelves. One of the most important effects of a specific background is to provide the audience with more information with which to decipher the story the artist wishes to tell. In my own work, I painted the background with different colour combinations, not only for the artwork’s aesthetic itself, but also for lighting the portrait into the specific atmosphere to reflect the complexities of human emotions.
Joshua Miels is also a contemporary portrait artist, but in contrast to the other artists, he pays greater attention on capturing people’s vulnerabilities as well as depicting emotions. He spends countless hours adding layer upon layer to each painting, and most of his paintings are visually striking and powerful. His portraits are mainly painted with oil paints. Each piece of work starts off with a different subject through experimentation; that is to say, each piece goes through its own journey, with its own emotions and experience. In an interview, Miels stated that his works not only offer pure visual pleasure for himself and the audience, but also deliver a message about the relationship between human and society. He also explains that not all of his figures have a specific message; instead, he prefers for viewers to imagine their own interpretations, influenced by their own experiences and beliefs. Furthermore, every piece can be viewed differently by each individual, and there is no correct or incorrect way to contemplate or decipher these works; the meaning of the artwork depends on who is looking at it. In Figure 5, an old man is squinting his eyes with a puzzled frown in the middle of canvas. From his expression, the old man seems to be feeling miserable. The painting was started on a grey background, and Miels splashed the oil paint as one way to express the sky and body with a grey-blue and dark colours. However, in detailing the old man’s face, he used an unabstracted approach; the face has a deep furrow on the brow and cheeks, as well as around the mouth. Although Miels has not expressed any indication of an eyeball, the audience can clearly feel the old man’s sadder side of life. The tone of the whole portrait is grey, including a background of grey-blue and the old man’s deep brown face. Through the “dark” portraits, Miels aims to encourage people to reflect on their own personal experiences. This notion is something that has inspired me in my own works; while the portrait may not have a direct specific emotion in mind, each figure will have a real sense of emotion that triggers a personal response from the viewer’s heart.
In conclusion, this essay has introduced and considered five separate portraits, each of which has been produced by a different artist. Except for Joshua Miels, the four remaining artists have all employed an abstract approach in depicting their subject, and through this artistic style, the works express and explore the complexity of human emotion. Each artist has inspired me in various ways: through vivid colours, thickness layer, and diversity of background. My work will be painted based on the texture of complex facial muscles, using assorted colours to express the intricacy and multifaceted nature of human emotions.