Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon is an artist who is best known for his analysis he carries out for his next painting or creation. Bacon would paint self portrait of models and friends but would distort their faces and accentuate their facial features. This would result in the final image being quite disturbing to look at and inhumanly possible.
Francis Bacon is one artist in particular that prefers to sketch from a photograph instead of being face to face with the subjected model. There are no images that could be found to visually back up this information, however I researched into a few websites and found a clear statement that came from Bacon himself. He goes on to explain how he’d use damaged photographs of his friends that he could paint from, he prefers being alone whilst painting as he feels more free. He continued to explain how it’s easier to work from photographic records as he can really get into depth with the facial features and make the final portrait more detailed and unique. Here is the exact quote:
“…there are these photographs scattered about the floor, all damaged. I’ve used them to paint portraits of friends, and then kept them. It’s easier for me to work from these records than from the people themselves, that way I can work alone and feel much freer. When I work, I don’t want to see anyone, not even models. These photographs were my aide-memoire, they helped me to convey certain features, certain details.”
It sounds as if he would discard of the photographs hat he painted from after as painting is a true collection of records for him. Photographs are just visual representations of memories and you can’t change them, where as a painting can be taken into perspective and you can change any detail you want whether it’s a big difference or very minimal.
Shin KwangHo
Shin KwangHo is an Artist that I have previously looked at when researching into Self Art Portrait photography. I have only looked into two images of his whilst doing so, therefore thought it would be a good idea to look into more of his artwork to grasp the concept of his work so when it comes to creating my own I can live up to his standards and make him and Bacon a big influence to my project.
I love these images and the message they put across, they are ever so simple as the coloured acrylic paints represent the moods and emotions of the person in the image. There isn’t much to the person it’s self apart from a few sketchy lines to show the silhouetted head, shoulders, neck and hair at the most. The sketched lines are quite thick and not a lot of detail have gone into this as Shin wanted the audience attracted to the multicoloured face. In the majority of each photo, Shin has used circular motions with his brush to create eye ball sockets to show where the eyes would be, he tried to make the image inhuman but still add the eye placement to give that normality effect. The image focus on the eyes if anything. The difference in brush strokes bring attention to the eyes straight away. No matter how messy the painting and drawing is, the small details allow the audience to see it is a person with emotion.
When researching Self art portraits for my project, a certain few images for Shin KwangHo stood out to me the most, He would sketch out the outline using a charcoal pencil. He would then fill in the face area using a variety of different coloured acrylic paints, these colours would represent the emotions of the subject. To incorporate this idea into Francis Bacon’s concept I will take a photograph of my subject model and print it out, this will be my guide when sketching out a black charcoal outline of a person, just like he did. I will then use acrylic paints to emphasis the emotions the model is feeling. Both artists like to distort the facial features of the person, something I would like to have a go at when creating my own self art portrait. My final outcome will have inspiration from both Shin KwangHo and Francis Bacon.
References;
Rachel Jacob 