In my work, I explore a synthesis of traditional portrait painting and abstraction. The process creates a tenuous relationship between the figures and their surroundings. The figure can be found in a landscape of the unknown, in arbitrary blocks of color that do not resemble reality. Disintegrating into fragments, the figure vacillates within the atmosphere. Fragmentation of the figure becomes analogous to the division that exists within the self. The human body and its containment within the skin creates the illusion that the self is a unified whole, while internal conflict reveals this illusion doesn’t hold up. In my figural painting, I hope to disentangle this figment; the subject fractures into pieces and is no longer held by contour lines.
Remnants of the figure disband and relocate, yet something of the figure remains. A sense of personality from the life of the person that I painted and the experience of their presence has been extracted. It is in their facial expression and body language. Folded hands, a far away look in their eyes, or a slight smile are the only traces of realism that viewers are left to hold on to. The pieces that once comprised the whole are elsewhere, and are perhaps difficult to locate, as parts coalesce and disperse, none resembling their original semblance. In the process, my perception of what it means to be a person in the world, how we view each other and ourselves is refracted.
copyright 2009 maria schoettler