Artist Statement

Christine Taylor

I have created several artworks that are corresponding to the concept of how fantasy physical characteristics and eye are related. Eyes are considered the windows to the soul, and within someone's soul are imaginations that are not found within the real world. My artworks display these ideas through physical characteristic that wouldn't ordinarily exist on a person, all that should eventually relate back to the eyes, whether they are nonexistent, deformed, or unique.

When it comes down to materials, I am not the most creative. The materials have remained quite traditional, including charcoal, graphite, watercolor, acrylic, and oils. The charcoal drawings were always created through the process of reverse charcoal, in which a charcoal chunk is heavily spread across the paper and an image is carved with an eraser. At certain points, a white charcoal pencil is added to promote highlights on the pieces, allocating certain areas to be more expressed than others, establishing hard lighting. For soft lighting, one would want to use graphite, which can only be described as the 'lite' version of charcoal. I used pointillism for the majority of my graphite pieces, as this easily controllable medium is flawless for skin texture. The paints were challenging, as I'm not exactly comfortable with this medium, and it is not easy to erase your mistakes should they be made. Therefore, the process to create these were made traditionally, as there are several attempts that I made to even grasp the different types of paints.

I completed these pieces because I had desired to create something that was not seem as traditional, rather, there was always something that was off putting to their appearance. I wanted to make an extra step further, so that those who would view my pieces would be incredibly bored from the appearance of repetitive and dull works. They would be something that a viewer would enjoy looking at, while they do not bring a specific point across, and that depending on the viewer, a new interpretation could be created.