Pixel portraits

The Victorian Pixel Portraits are made of thousands of little strokes of ink that meditate on the soul of a picture. Exposing light in between the strokes as a system is a rough translation of the chemical process of photography. The recumbent strokes, at first seen as digital noise, now create anti-photos that provoke greater questions about the social and inspirational role of photography and its potential to provide a direct visual experience. This work is partly inspired by the mechanics of how our visual senses operate. Do we see separate strokes, or do we see the whole portrait? What is it actually that we are seeing and how much of it is conjured up in the mind? This work examines those mechanics while keeping a balance between the hand-made and the fabricated. The first photographs of the 19th century struggled with similar questions of representation as compared to painted objects and portraits of that time. The pixel portraits are still imbued with a sense of pride and belonging even though the represented are not among us anymore. These drawings are ink studies for more elaborate works like murals, acrylic paintings, and installations. Available as fine art prints at Saatchi > https://bit.ly/31JRnBo