Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Iain Macarthur


Iain Macarthur is an artist that I stumbled upon over the weekend. I have been looking at his work in more detail and I have to admit, it has grabbed a strong hold of me. A lot of his artwork has an ethnic/tribal flair to them which is very interesting for it calls for major detail throughout his pieces. Many of them are intricate and draw you in and throughout the image to really understand what it is you’re looking at. This image in specific is under his surrealist work. His use of interwoven patterns over this woman’s face is very unique. It somewhat flattens her face, however, the idea that this pattern is going in front and behind her really pops her forward so we don’t lose her face. I enjoy the several white spaces he’s left throughout; it allows the eye to rest for a little before returning to such an intense image. His shading is subtle yet adds enough dimension to the figure's face. He also said that he strives for photorealism. Although I don’t think he has achieved that in this piece, his other pieces support that statement.

4 comments:

  1. This has a very art nouveau feel to it. I like the play of shape and realism together.

    ReplyDelete
  2. At the first glance I got more of a cyberpunk feel from this image, but that's probably just my brain being wired for that right now.

    I'd say this is closer to art deco in its use of patterns and pseudo-mechanical designs. A very striking image.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is an interesting idea. Most of the time when I see a face broken up into pieces it's usually a cyborg type thing. I never would have thought of something like this with patterns. Although I'm sure it's not his best, I can see the photorealism in this one. I instantly thought of photorealism when I looked at this.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is my favorite piece posted for this week. The beauty is the woman's face is stunning and although the patterns are mostly geometrical, they really do accentuate her face. I love how Iain made her looking directly at you, her gaze is powerful at drawing you in. I also like how he drew her with no hair. Baldness, I would say, isn't a feminine quality, but yet she looks so alluring.

    ReplyDelete