mary alice (ma) strobel seigenthaler pierce 

How can unconventional portraiture stimulate emotions of discomfort, disgust, and curiosity? 

 

At the beginning of my process, I knew that I wanted to create portraiture while experimenting and incorporating surrealism and color. I began by experimenting with my portraiture paintings as I started warping them and adding bright colors and shapes. Throughout the year I experimented with many different ideas: surrealism, portraiture, modernism, collage, disgust, humanity, and openings. 

 

Every piece has catapulted a new stream of ideas; I have hundreds of sketchbooks filled with portrait doodles that have been influenced by investigation. A painting that heavily influenced the rest of my work was “Yum!”. While painting it, I was intrigued by how others would react to the unconventional look of the monochromatic face inside of a mouth. Many who passed by my easel as I was working were disgusted or scared but felt as though they couldn't look away. I wanted to keep inspiring these emotions through my portraits. I wanted people to feel irked by my paintings while still being so curious that they could not look away.

 

I have been heavily influenced by a painter named Jenny Saville. Saville introduced to me the “aesthetic of disgust” or the “value in retaining and interrogating our immediate and seemingly unambivalent reactions of disgust”. She experiments with both classical figuration and modern abstraction in her works, warping flesh and exposing imperfections in her paintings to create a desired effect. Her works and ideas have since been a catalyst in my pieces, as I choose subjects and ideas that evoke discomfort and disgust from viewers.