Past Tense, in detail

12/22/2011

Chuck Close has inspired me since I was a child. When I first saw a piece of his at the Art Institute of Chicago, I was immediately drawn to it. I believed it to be a huge photograph, but there was just something that stuck with me, and drew me in. I was amazed when I saw that the piece was not a photograph, and was instead composed of many smaller patterns. When viewed up close, the patterns seemed like silly, primary colors in a loose, seemingly careless arrangement. As you step away, you start to realize the patterns work together to form shapes. At a far enough distance, the patterns and shapes resolve into photo-realistic portraits.

I'm no Chuck Close, but I know his work has been a huge influence on my recent pieces, including my Past Tense series. I hope they offer a similar sense of magic, as a fairly coherent image viewed from afar breaks down into a pixelated chaos of meaningless scribbles when viewed up close.

Since I cannot post the full scale images on the Web, I've put together this image with snippets of the Past Tense series in full-scaled detail. Fun fact: though these pieces are meant to be printed, almost none of my work has made its way from digital images to printed pieces. I think budgeting for some professional printing will be on my list of things to do in 2012.