Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Audrey Kawasaki



The themes in Audrey Kawasaki's work are contradictions within themselves. Her work is both innocent and erotic. Each subject is attractive yet disturbing. Audrey's precise technical style is at once influenced by both manga comics and Art Nouveau. Her sharp graphic imagery is combined with the natural grain of the wood panels she paints on, bringing an unexpected warmth to enigmatic subject matter.

Audrey normally focuses on the female body and form, with sweeping lines that create beautiful patterns around the subjects she portrays. Everything one of her pieces seems effortless and simple. However, upon a closer look you can see all the time and painstakingly intricate designs that create the larger image.

To see more of Audrey's work you can visit her blog. She updates regularly with new pieces she is working on, as well as other projects.





6 comments:

  1. Wow, these are wonderful. I love the look of paintings on wood panel, especially when they are as delicate as these.

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  2. I definitely agree that these are wonderful, if not amazing. Allowing the natural wood grain to come through and influence your work must take a lot of guts - but I'm just a control freak.

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  3. It's plain to see that she is clearly under the heavy influence of the Art Nouveau. The heavy weight black outline of the figures, delicate interior color and use of patterned motifs are clear influence of Alphonse Mucha. There's a lot of allegory going on within each piece.

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  4. I really love Kawasaki's work and it tends to influence my own illustrations, especially the way she draws eyes. I really enjoy her older sketchbook pieces wand figure drawing samples. I find it interesting that sometimes she doesn't place parts of the arms in, but you know the way her hands are placed are proportionally correct. I still wonder why she tends to do that?

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  5. One of these days I really need to get back into the idea of painting, to just try once on wood, to see the difference between working on wood to a canvas. The more I see artists working on wood the more I find the work much more wonderful. And how she uses the texture of wood to her advantage really makes it pop. Working digitally I always try to find textures to overlay my work, be nice to see how rewarding it would be to work on a already textured surface traditionally. Anyways, really like her work, it’s very soft and I just adore how she does skin tones even the flow of hair. And what tickles me is how she does hands in some of her work. It’s a way of doing fingers that even shows in my own work, where they are pinkened and without nails. To me, her work is beautiful but very dreary, the people in her art always look tired/ sad, like loss of emotions just being “there” they feel like lifeless dolls to me that their gaze is almost piercing when they are painted to be looking right at you. All and all, her work is something I really will be keeping a eye on, I’m really happy you showed her work.

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  6. I love the soft colors and delicate lines. The wood really gives these that something extra. It reminds me of E. G. Gauger, who has done work on wood but has now moved on to scratch-drawing on marble slabs.

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