Lea Angel Cross

11/19/2017

Painting 1

                                                                 

                                                                    Artist Statment

The piece that I painted on canvas with oil paints is titled Harmony between Faces and Spirits. I was inspired by Freida Khalo’s work particularly the painting “The Two Frieda's” I liked the painting because she painted a human heart over her breast, that symbolically reflected her inner emotions towards herself. Originally I had different plans for my painting, I struggled to chose a topic. I wanted it to be personal in topic and style. I thought about some of my hardship’s and myself but I struggled to come up with idea’s. The other option that I thought about was painting someone close to me. However after a I received my canvas I took a weekend to think about my topic. I realized that I wanted something the incorporated my past and present, and with my anniversary just passing. I decided that I wanted the piece to be more intimate and include more than just myself. Digging up old photos from just a few years back I found the first photo I had taken of me and my husband when where where still in high school. With my reference in hand, I began working on my canvas. I liked the raw emotional energy of the human heart so I decided that it should be the center piece, however my main subject’s was faces of myself and my spouse so I put them off center, doing my best to balance them out. I chose to color them as close to our actual skin tones as possible. My theme was a balancing of energies. After I painted the faces, I painted a yin and yang symbol for the background. The yin and yang symbol was significant to my upbringing as I studied martial arts for a lot of my childhood. The symbol stands for creative and destructive energies which is similar to feminine and masculine energies that I depicted. I felt that it was appropriate as a topic and as a background image. The colors in the corners symbolize spiritual energy, I decided to make them vibrant to bring balance to the heaviness of the faces and the black from the yin and yang symbol. I really enjoyed painting this piece and feel that it embodies my relationship with my spouse.