Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2014 10:54 pm
Until recently I really didn't see the point of "photo-realistic" painting. (If you want photo realism buy a camera and take a picture.) Then I came upon Ms. Monk's paintings. Her minute brushes give her control over color and texture in every millimeter of the image in a way that would be very difficult to achieve in Photoshop or any other editing program I think. She combines realism and abstraction in the same image in a way that's fascinates me, and challenges notions of the "unity" of an image. In both of these images she's presented attractive females in a realistic way -- and in a way that any portrait photographer would have criticized (the dark shadow under the girl's left eye; the snail-shaped splotch on the lip of the woman in the shower). There's a lot to say about both of these paintings, I'll just mention for now that I particularly like the way she's presented the girl's left arm under her head, with three fingers rising above the surface on her right, entangling with her hair, and I notice that although her face is quite realistically portrayed, the rest of the painting is actually quite abstract (cover just her face and it becomes obvious). The women in the shower (which may be a self-portrait) has her nose pressed against the glass door of the steamy shower, but her eye looks out (as we look in) with exceptional clarity and repose, as though this were a normal stance to take, a strange, engaging and wonderfully complex presentation. And what the girl in the water is communicating might take Marcel Proust to express. Much to see here, at the technical and compositional levels. What I can see I can't yet begin to formulate -- that's when I know I'm onto something really interesting!
http://alyssamonks.com/#333_AlyssaMonks_Bait.jpg#portthumbs
http://alyssamonks.com/#333_AlyssaMonks_Steamed.jpg#portthumbs
Art
http://alyssamonks.com/#333_AlyssaMonks_Bait.jpg#portthumbs
http://alyssamonks.com/#333_AlyssaMonks_Steamed.jpg#portthumbs
Art