artkarolina
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New Artwork: Cyborg and Drape
🕑 Added 2023-06-01 15:00:04 +0000 UTCThis artwork was quite the journey! Higher res image as always for you~
12"x18" on half-inch canvas. Will be varnished & ready to hang when dry.
Concept
I decided to go with the same theme as the Make It Work painting as a reference to plastic surgery culture. It's becoming more and more an obsession and I think it will only get worse. Recently, I learned that getting eyelid surgery has become the norm for girls turning 18 in South Korea because "open eyes" are deemed more lively and attractive. To me, that is crossing into a new extreme diverging away from the natural human form.
By placing such hard divides in the cyborg's body between flesh and metal, I don't try to create the seamless illusion at all. I further this divide with the colour palette and values, with the high contrast changes between warm and light to dark, cool, and angular.
I think I will continue with this theme in further paintings because I really want people to think about what kind of procedures people will consider doing to themselves to alter their appearance. When there's sexy robot girls, will people volunteer to abandon whole portions of their body and adopt this Frankenstein form? How many more years before we will look at a face & ask how much of it is polymer after careful bone sculpting?
Figure Sketch & WIP
Initially, this painting started as a figure drawing study from Croquis Cafe. I really loved the elongated form, the unusually taut stomach, stark light, and the way the pose puts her on display. I think as I painted this, the body changed a lot but it was never my intent to copy the drawing exactly.
I love this figure by herself though!
Listing page for the original. It's about 9x16".
Unfortunately, I didn't take many WIP pics of this one. It sat on the floor of my studio for a very long time until I figured out how to take add the concept to the figure. I was just happy to play with textures.
I always feel the need to finish art in a linear fashion, like a standard project to-do, but sometimes the best thing for art is to put it down. This is the case with this painting. I looked for a way to add the transhumanist / cyborg element, and I couldn't think of the appropriate way to do it for months. I was trying too hard to paint a pretty woman, which, in my opinion, would only make another cliche cyberpunk piece. The whole painting felt really boring & predictable and I wasn't going to settle for that.
