Tag: expression

Source unknown – Title unknown (201X)

The use of line in this is truly exquisite–the way outer edge of the body is firm and between subtle shading and softer lines, a sense of the softness of the feathery hair and skin are embodied.

Compositionally, I’m not sure the top drawing works on its own. There’s too much negative space to the far right of the frame–the eye scans past the face and doesn’t return.

Yet–in combination, as a diptych–there’s a range of strangely authentic, unselfconscious experience presented that is fascinating.

A strange thing that I experience is there are times when my empathy is running hot or something and an scared emoji can make me worry about the poor thing’s well being. Most of the time–I really am phenomenally bad at interpreting expressions.

However, looking at these I’m certain that the top drawing might best be a depiction of the feeling we term ‘pensive’; while the lower one is almost certainly ‘abandon’–in the sense of something letting go as opposed to being let go of. (’Abandon’ a strange word that encapsulates both the experience of the subject and the object, depending upon contextual deployment.)

I sort of feel like this is an accurate depiction of the extreme poles of the spectrum upon which my own feelings exist.

Source: devourgod

Arno Nollen – Untitled (20XX)

Although I can’t make heads or tails of Nollen’s work–it’s too scattered and profuse for me to know how in the Sam Hell I’m supposed to fucking approach it–this image walked in my brain like it was a cat that owned the joint and my brain had a front door I’d accidentally left open.

I can’t explain why I like it. It’s #skinnyframebullshit and the way her right ankle gets cut off is more than a little awkward. Yet, there’s something about her expression in combination with the self-conscious placement of her hands and her slouching posture that manages to reach in and completely short circuit my brain so that my only thought is Jesus Harold and Maude Fucking Christ on Christmas she is Helen of Troy beautiful, people would wages wars over her.

But I think–despite how off putting I find Nollen’s typical presentation–that in this case it enhances the effect of the image. The post-it notes recall a certain studious academic fervor that I suppose is an effort to undercut the sexualization and objectification that come to bear on the image. It’s half good first step and half cop-out but that it’s there at all feels reassuring in a way that it will probably take me another two years to even begin to articulate.