Intimacy and understanding the interaction between individuals is the current focus of my work. A major factor in my work is depicting the overlapping of figures. Acknowledgement of another in a drawing or painting is something that creates a confrontational dynamic between figures, it shows a consideration of the other person existing within the frame. However, to play with and counteract this dynamic I have removed as many recognizable features from these figures as possible, which incites a need to rely on every mark I present. I make these marks and crop these film stills this way with the knowledge that the viewer will subconsciously fill in the rest of the features. 

 

This subconscious action then brings into consideration the explicit nature of these drawings and where the line can be drawn between explicit and implicit: what is shown, what is implied, and what is not there at all. 

 

I have been using colored pencils to create these small drawings of cropped pornographic film stills. The colored pencil allows me to utilize different textures, such as, cross hatching and burnishing, to place emphasis on certain areas and to control the level of saturation in one section over another. My color palette is bright in comparison to my references. I believe that simplifying the tones to the undertones presented in the skin allows for me to use the rawness of the pigment of the colored pencil while also creating a filter over the scene itself. This dichotomy directly corresponds with the conversation of the explicit nature of these works by once again calling into question what is shown versus what is only implied from a material standpoint.  

 

Using all these tools I am trying to invoke a longer consideration in the viewer. My goal with my work has always been to leave the viewer with a lingering thought and to play with the perception and subsequent conclusions the viewer draws.